Slaughterhouse Five (Part Five: 233–275)

Well this is the end. A conventional ending? Not in the slightest, but I think it was a fitting one. Vonnegut does not give the novel a happy ending but doesn’t give it a sad ending either, it simply is the end.

With the ending of Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut addresses the common issues of war novel. Mary O’Hare identified these issues in the beginning of the novel. She states, “You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies…and war will look just wonderful.” (18) She means that authors of war novels don’t write the truth and in turn make war appear as glamorous. Vonnegut introduces Bertram Rumfoord, a man who shares a hospital room with Billy after the plane crash, to address the problems. Vonnegut makes Rumfoord a conventional historian, he focuses on making war events seem successful and needed to end the war. Also, Rumfoord, himself, seems to have bought into lies spread about war. He believes that war has been fought by men who strong and honorable patriots, not people like Billy. So when Billy states he was in the war, Rumfoord refuses to believe him. He refuses to believe that someone “who [he thought] would be much better off dead” (245) was a soldier. Rumfoord is not alone in this belief because Vonnegut has modeled Rumfoord after actual society. This is the purpose of Billy’s character, to be a stark contrast to society’s belief, to show the truth about war and the soldiers that fight it.

Vonnegut also readdresses Billy’s deterministic views and the problem it causes. During a conversation with Rumfoord, Billy agrees with Rumfoord that the bombing of Dresden had to happen, that there were no other options. Determinism again allows its believers (Rumfoord and Billy in this case) to escape the guilt of their actions, even if it is the guilt of allowing 135,000 people die.

Now for my theory. I am confident that Billy does suffer from a severe mental disorder which was induced by trauma caused by the war. I also confident in my idea that Billy has made distorted the German soldiers that captured him into the Tralfamadorians. The only thing I can’t figure out is: Why? Why does Billy create this false reality? One idea comes from the description on the back on of my book, “Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.” This makes me think that the reason I don’t know why Billy has fabricated his reality is because Billy does know doesn’t know why himself. That in the novel Billy is still searching for a meaning for what he experienced. My other idea is that Billy has created such an outrageous reality as an escape, a way he can almost completely disconnect himself from the horrors he has seen.

Lastly, I want say that Slaughterhouse Five was an eye-opener for me. I have never really thought, like Vonnegut and Mary O’hare assumed, about who was fighting our wars. I guess I always thought that our soldiers were just my elders but Vonnegut showed me that this idea is far from true. He made me realize that soldiers were my age or just slightly older than me. I find it crazy that a kid my age would decide (or during WWII, be forced) to take on the responsibility of defending the country when I can’t even decide to take on the responsibility of starting my summer reading work early. I think Vonnegut does a great job of putting this into perspective with Slaughterhouse Five.

*It makes you think: What would you do if you forced to go to war? I don’t know about you but I think I would be just as lost as Billy.

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