Any moment in time does not choose to come to life, rather, that moment is always occurring somewhere in someone’s world. We see this idea of time in Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughter-House-Five, through structure, character changes, and Vonnegut’s own interjections (specifically at the beginning and end of the novel). Vonnegut even goes as far to suggest the idea that “All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.” (pg. 27) While this revolutionary idea of universal time seems very out of the ordinary to most of us, it is essential to the effect of Billy Pilgrim’s character and Vonnegut’s cathartic process as a writer. I will use my own experiences as an example…
I recently wrote an essay where I tried to connect two completely independent moments, separated by at least ten years, in my life. I thought I could justify the reason for suddenly finding a brain lesion in my head now by suggesting that it was my fault ten years ago when I pulled a basketball trophy – which was stuck on top a piece of already-chewed gum -- from the top of a book shelve. The corner of the trophy landed on my head. It turns out the lesion on my brain was congenital, and completely unrelated. This was my way of collapsing these two unrelated events onto one common cause.
Using my story as a sort of explanation, the audience can see how Vonnegut’s story makes use of this notion of time. While many of Billy Pilgrim’s experiences may have felt like they were encountered linearly at some point in his life, Vonnegut presents Billy’s struggles through very discombobulating story telling. The structure in Slaughterhouse has an advantage because of the connections that can be made between discontinuous moments in time. The possible justifications for moments that have no similarities at the times they were experienced can easily be stretched to fit the eyes of the beholder. Vonnegut’s stretching and rearranging of time allows him to suggest certain reasoning to the reader and to himself. I think this is pretty cool considering that I think all of us have moments in our lives we wish to explain but cannot do so otherwise. Pulling experiences together may be the best explanations we can get.
I learned about “time” used in Slaughterhouse through a Podcast on iTunes by Radio Lab called “Beyond Time.” It was a biology assignment.
6 comments:
Discombobulated is definitely up there on the list of best adjectives used to describe this book, by the way.
i also find the fact that you had to listen to a podcast called "Beyond Time" for biology class....
Now for the real stuff... i like this post a lot, but my favourite part was the end where you talked about stretching similarities and meanings between seemingly unrelated events for our own benefit--because sometimes the only explanation we can get is the one we make up.
I think you are completely correct in your post. I want to create a situation. Let's imagine a person has died. For the sake of this idea, let's assume the spirit looks over the life they have just lived. I think when the person looks back, they would not specifically look at everything in chronological order. I would assume that they would instead see things in sections. For example, the person would look back at every moment they have loved, and perhaps looking at these specific moments without interruption make this act of affection and camaraderie easier to understand. Ultimately, it seems that time may hinder our growth as people, and I think Vonnegut presents this when he is developing Billy as a character.
I still don't completely understand Vonnegut's use of chopping up time, but this post helped me understand it better at least. I think i understand the concept of it all, but what I don't understand is why it is essential to Billy Pilgrim's character. Wouldn't it make more sense for the book to go in chronological order, showing the differences between Billy before and after Dresden? I don't know, just throwing out something I've been thinking about.
This post really makes you think. I really liked how you pointed out that he tries to relate two different scenarios into one. I think that Billy might not always have an answer to a certain situation or even and so he must search for it through his past experiences. We as humans with our minds being our greatest asset can find answers through experience. Every human fears the unknown, and through experiences we are able to feel more comfortable in any surrounding. By Billy forcing two counters opposite thoughts together he is just trying to figure out a solution to his situation.
Yes, Vonnegut's way of telling these stories is rather confusing. I think that one advantage of writing it like that is that it leaves a lot of interpretation up to the readers. In your case, if we were reading your stories about your head, some people may connect the two events and others will not.
I am curious about who all in our class actually buy into what Vonnegut is saying. Personally I do not believe that all moments have always existed. I do believe that some things are un-avoidable, but not that we have no free will. Ultimately, I do not think we can ever know, so I suppose iot is pointless to argue. Vonnegut, however, certainly presents an interesting point of view on the topic.
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