How We Learn

At this point in the book Billy goes through something that is very rare. A sort of vision were he knows that the Tralfamadorians will abduct him. This reminds me of the movies were people travel in time in order to save someone and then have a agnorisis, they find out that by going back in time he was responsible for that persons death. It is as if the future already included anything you might do, and going back in time is just an event that will lead to what is inevitable. For the first time the reader understands what the aliens have to do in this story. The aliens are a way to communicate the obvious on earth. Since they come from the outside and look at us from the outside they see what we sometimes miss. When they mention, “Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (Slaughterhouse Five Chapter 4) I noticed that we take this for granted. We concentrate on how some people are denied their free will by others. An example is Billy in a WWII prisoner camp. Obviously we cannot ignore how others are treated but we must also notice that some do have a choice. If what the Tralfamadorians mentioned is true then the world isn’t as bad off as we believe.

This brings me to another conclusion and that is that the aliens are the main characters, and that Billy is just and example that proves their point. This is part of Vonnegut’s talent, he maintains the reader in a constant state of analysis. You will draw conclusions and hen draw some more before you come to one that is concrete. When the prisoners are in the showers Billy recalls a moment when he was a baby: “He was a baby who had just been bathed by his mother. Now his mother wrapped him in a towel, carried him into a rosy room that was filled with sunshine.” (Slaughterhouse Five Chapter 4) It is interesting to know the things we recall and what impacts us. For Billy the simple act of his mother bathing him remained in his head. This is a wake up call for me since it proves I have to be careful what I do since the things I least expect might stay in my head forever. Billy has been a great example for me and he has taught me many things by doing things wrong. Learning from mistakes is very effective, specially if they are not too severe.