Not a Concrete Idea

Despite my laziness, this chapter inspired me on writing.

One thing I noticed in chapter eight of Slaughter House-Five was how Vonnegut relates all of Billy's time travel to his anxieties and internal problems. If we see in chapter eight when Billy feels that"The experience was definitely associated with those four men and not what they sang."(Pg.175) Obviously Billy has been impacted by something that happened in the past which always comes back when he sees the barbershop quartet. As I read along I found the past incident that produced the melancholy in Billy: " The guards drew together instinctively,rolled their eyes. They experimented with one expression and then another,said nothing, though their mouths were often open. They looked like a silent film of barbershop quartet." (Pg. 178) But that is not my point, it is to show you how not only his past and present, if we can say, were marked by the barbershop quartet but also his future (its all relative, avoid recalling Billy's time travel) "The barbershop quartet was singing "Wait Till the Sun Shines Nelly,"when the plane smacked into the top of Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont." His life is predetermined to never change, no matter the time in which he is living.

Thats not all I wanted to write. When Mary O'Hare said, "You were all babies in the war-like the ones upstairs!"(Pg.14) That little phrase stuck in my head. I thought to myself, " Vonnegut has a point there, after all it is an anti-war book, he must be trying to say something." Evidently I was right, he keeps on repeating these type of phrases through satire: "Billy told trout about Rosewater." "My God-I thought he was about fourteen years old" said Trout. " A full grown man-a captain in war." Its quite interesting how Vonnegut uses a bit of humor and irony to prove his point.

 I just have to end my blog saying that "we are all afraid of something"( Pg. 171) No matter how big or small is our fear, we will still be more weak as ever. Through our actions we show our fear.