Am I just a fool? Because I read Slaughterhouse 5 and did not really fully understand it. Could someone explain what he was doing on Tralfamadore? What does that have to do with Dresden?
Also, was he really manic depressive?
To prevent future difficulties, can you truthfully state that you aren’t studying Slaughterhouse 5 as part of your schoolwork? The people here do not do your schoolwork for you.
Try reading it again.
What they said.
Also, you might get better answers to literature questions in Cafe Society, so I’ll move it over there for you.
Hey! There’s a movie…and you get to see Valerie Perrine’s bazongas…
Vonnegut rules…
First of all, Kurt Vonnegut is amazing, and so is Slaughterhouse 5… I just had to say that. But what exactly is it that you are having trouble understanding? The whole thing? Because that’s kind of broad. If you could be more specific, maybe I could help you… I studied it for a while.
Don’t feel too bad. Not even Vonnegut knew what the frick he meant. He once remarked that “Mother Night” was the only novel about which he knew the theme (Be careful who you pretend to be because, in the end, that’s who you are).
NO, I’m not studying it in school. I just don’t understand the time travel (is he really time travelling or just rememebering things) and the tralfamadore thing (what does that have to do with the bombing of Dresden). The writing style is very confusing to me as well. Thanks for the help.
I once wrote a paper for a science fiction class I took in college: Slaughterhouse 5: Science Fiction or Psychological Case Study. This was more than 15 years ago, so I don’t have it any more, but the title should give you food for thought…
I just re-read and realized you had already considered that angle…
<litella>
Never mind…
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How about this:
from http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/themes.html
‘There isn’t any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.’ (Vonnegut, 1969 p.88)
It’s been a long time since I read it, but here goes:
According to the Tralfamadoreans (sp?), all time exists at once, just like the other dimensions. Just as we are able to experience and view all spacial dimensions at once and move in any direction, the Tralfamadoreans can experience all times. For reasons which may or may not have been explained in the book, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. He is unable, unlike the Tralfamadoreans, to control the order in which he experiences his life, but he is not experiencing it in the linear fashion in which humans normally experience it.
What was he doing on Tralfamadore? IIRC, he was abducted by the Tralfamadoreans. I don’t remember why (other than as a zoo exhibit).
What does Tralfamadore have to do with Dresden? Nothing, directly. If the author intended a symbolic connection, I have forgotten it or it went over my head. Perhaps it is just meant to add entertainment value to the book so that the reader will stick around for the “message” in the Dresden sections.
Was Billy really manic depressive? I don’t think so. His life, lived out of sequence, was very confusing to him and anyone he talked to about it would have to think he was crazy in one way or another. (Keep in mind, it’s been many years since I read the book.)
Or were you asking if Kurt Vonnegut was manic depressive? I have no idea.
I admire one sceen in the book and movie very much, and for me, at least, that in particular was the “point”.
It’s when he’s standing in the museum, explaining that he’s about to be killed. Then the audience reacts with horror. He explains there’s nothing he can do. They don’t get it.
In this I see an audience that listens, but really doesn’t comprend, like so many people, in so many situations in life. The audience is interested in entertainment, but not in truth.
There’s a secondary point I feel Vonnegut’s making, which is that we need to accept the things that have happened to us. Not try to forget them, ignore their lessons. What happened in the past is just as meaningful as what’s happening now. Funny, I never wondered whether Slaughterhouse 5 set me down the road to getting degrees in history… must be the past creeping up on me…
On at least a superficial level, the Tralfamadore/unstuck in time part allows Vonnegut to escape the restrictions of linear plotting. It allows him to juxtapose, and thereby emphasize, the absurdities that Billy (and all of us face) in life.
Do you think the book would have cracked you between the eyes quite as hard had it followed Billy’s life chronologically?
And, Valerie Perrine’s ta-ta’s ROCK!
My son recommends this site for notes on high school books. It has Slaughterhouse Five. Maybe it will help.
I’m pretty sure that Vonnegut spent some short period of time institutionalized for manic/depressive behavior.
His mom committed suicide, possibly because of that disorder. His son, Mark, was institutionalized. I’m not sure if that was the cause. He is now a Dr. I think it was schizophrenia.
As a side note, Vonnegut’s daughter was married to Geraldo Reviera, in the early 1970’s. If that wouldn’t make you crazy, what would?
:eek:
Well, I’ve only read a few snippets of Vonnegut, but his writing seems pretentious and weird to me. “Look at me, I’m breaking convention! Whoo!” For that matter, I don’t like a lot of books that fall under the heading “Literature”.
samclem, what bearing does Vonnegut’s psychological state have on the worth of his novel? Philip K. Dick was a loony, yet he had enough insight to write the novel that was the foundation for “Blade Runner”, right? If that’s not an astute commentary on the problems we’re facing now with genetic manipulation…
strumhauke, try to cultivate an understanding of cultural history. Vonnegut was a spokesman for an era when the fabric of reason, government, and culture seemed to be coming apart. He was writing about fears that every teenager had as they watched Watts (Los Angeles) burning, and wondered if it was going to be their city, next.
I’ve often had, however, the same reaction as you did to works that are considered “literature”. The trick is to understand what appealed to people at that time. I’ve been unable to do it with quite a few novels, this century, or the last. But I hardly disallow that they were relevant in their own time.
Let me take a shot here. At the time that Vonnegut wrote S-5, he was questioning the whole validity of the American ethic. Also, in his youth and into his most productive years, surrealism was a very big aspect of the art world. Add to this that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter on Mars Novels were very popular in Vonnegut’s youth.
It should also be noted that he experienced the Dresden bombing as did his character and it made little sense to him (Vonnegut) at the time and it made even less later in his life as he reexamined it.
When you combine these and other influences that bombarded the author, you can understand why he chose to create a novel that was dystopian and surreal with science fiction overtones.
So to attempt to answer your questions - He was on Tralfamadore because it wasn’t earth to create both a physical and mental distance for the character and reader. And Dresden for Vonnegut stood as the ultimate in stupidity and man’s inhumanity to man, thus giving a reason for that need for distance that Tralfmadore provided. It should be noted that in both places Billy was a captive which could well suggest that maybe ultimately we always are captives - some are just nicer jails than others.
Another reading could be that Tralfamadore was merely a mental construct of the character, a place he created where he could hide from a reality that was alternately too gruesome to tolerate and one that was too mundane to tolerate.
And finally was the “he” you were asking about in you final question the character or the author?
I was asking if Vonnegut was manic depressive.
Thanks, all, for the help.