Part 1 of Slaughterhouse Five (Chapter 1&2)

The book opens up with a chapter all about Vonnegut’s journey to write this book after he returned from the war. The topic that seems to be in the forefront of his mind is the firebombing of Dresden near the end of the war, he seems to be drawn to this particular event because of his own experience in it and the fact that it was largely unknown to most of the populous. Although this is not exactly the book that he wrote. I chose this book because I’ve read many World War two books in the past but with the first words “All this happened more or less” I knew it wasn’t going to be a normal war novel but that may be exactly what Vonnegut was aiming for. The phrase more or less caused me to start wondering what part of this was going to be fictional besides the names and I was not disappointed.

The second chapter starts with Vonnegut saying that Billy Pilgrim (our new main character) has become unstuck in time. This means that Billy jumps from one point in time to another, he is able to sidestep out of line and move but he doesn’t know where in line he’ll end up. Then the interesting part happens not three pages later, turns out he was abducted by aliens and made into a zoo animal. These aliens seemed to be able to control this time unsticking by going to the fourth dimension and being able to manipulate third dimensional timelines. By giving the aliens this ability to step out of our dimension and into one above it also gives them a sense of detachment, like an unbiased observer, someone who is removed from this horrible world. This ability also makes these aliens null to the death which this war is covered with because for them no one ever dies. The phrase “so it goes” is repeated throughout the second chapter which is something else he got from the aliens, it’s how they see death because to them death is just one point in someone’s time line. It seems to be a way for Billy to rationalize everything that bad that has happened. It is a very interesting way to look at life, every moment of your life is always happening somewhere on the individual’s timeline so everyone is always alive and dead, death is just a part of life.

Another piece to the puzzle that I expect Billy will be is how he perceives himself. As he interacts with the other soldiers and with the environment he is fighting against. Billy is perpetually in the position of a victim or burden: first to the system which put him on the front lines, then to the environment which he ill prepared for, and to finally to his fellow men because he isn’t a soldier or have a weapon. This may end up connecting with the idea that was brought up before in the first chapter that when these men when to war they were only children, helpless.

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