When I first encountered Billy Pilgrim and his strange life of jumping between past experiences, I was a little confused and it took me a bit to get oriented with the way that Billy lives his life. Once I had a better grasp for Billy's "schizophrenic" jumps throughout history, I noticed that, although Billy experiences the events the same way every time, the narration that occurs sort of "in his mind" is very passive about everything nearly to the point of being apathetic.
I was surprised at first that Billy could experience such horrors as the firebombing of Dresden, the prisoner of war marches, and even simply living, or perhaps more aptly put, surviving, in the German prisoner of war camps, with so little emotion attached. He must have felt something right? But today's discussion about the Tralfamadorian perspective on life, made me think that perhaps he had adopted some of their philosophy.
The Tralfamadorians seem to know possess the ability to see the passage of time from an outside perspective, as they are "4th-dimensional." As a result they know how the Universe ends (by their own hand) but do nothing to deter this event from happening. As one of the aliens tells Billy (referring to their own pilot who ignites the Universe), "He has always pressed [the button], and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way." Knowing how it all ends, the aliens have adopted a very peaceful, passive mindset. Whatever happens, happens. No matter what you do, it will always happen.
If Billy has indeed adopted this mindset, this would explain his perceived "lack of emotion" is really just Billy's passivity to all of the events in his life, since he already knows how it all ends. I believe that Billy calls attention to this fact when he uses the phrase "So it goes," which often follows an event in which someone dies, or some tragedy occurs.
This whole new mindset that Vonnegut presents, begs the question of whether or not it can be applied to everyday human life. Obviously the average person hasn't become "unstuck in time" like Billy Pilgrim has, but is there a place for a more passive way of thinking about things. In Billy's case he seems to apply this especially to situations of suffering or hardship, and I wonder if there is an application for this in someone's everyday life. Now, I'm not saying that we should be reacting to wars, deaths, and tragedies with "so it goes," but perhaps a more relaxed mindset would foster new ideas and maybe even help create different ways of approaching issues. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the fictional alien race that lives on Tralfamadore.
I view Billy as a man brain-damaged from a plane crash and traumatized by war. I think the Tralfamadorians and their personal philosophy of time being set in stone is an invention of Billy's imagination to help him cope with his haunting experiences. It's definitely a comfort to him that neither he, nor anyone, could have done anything to prevent the bombing of Dresden or loss of human life. "So it goes." I really don't want to condone this passive, frankly irresponsible, way of thinking in everyday life, but I can definitely see where Billy's coming from.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't consider Billy's way of thinking as irresponsible, especially since in his situation, knowing all that he knows. I agree that it seems logical for Billy to think this way and it's how he copes and while I'm not saying that we should all be like him all the time since we obviously haven't experienced what he has, but I agree with Joaquin that it's not necessarily irresponsible to sometimes think passively.
DeleteI think we all live similar to Billy Pilgrim in some way or another. We are all just "bugs trapped in amber" living one moment after another, just in a linear order unlike Billy. What I think disrupts this linear order for Billy is the trauma of the plane crash and the war. We often "live in the past" and "re-live" certain memories over and over again even if we are no longer there: One way of viewing Vonnegut's description of Billy is of him comparing his own process of how the war still "lives within him" even though he is no longer there. Vonnegut may not actually travel in time, but memories have that same power.
ReplyDeleteI think the world would be a more peaceful place if we all learned to think passively as Billy does. But in some situations I don't think it's possible without becoming "unstuck in time" as Billy is. Imagine going through Billy's experiences, there's no way one would be so calm.
ReplyDeleteThere is maybe something appealing about Billy's detachment, the general vibe of inner peace he carries around with him. And it's worth noting that most people in his Ilium life seem to like him just fine--he's a popular, upstanding citizen, member of the Lions Club and successful businessman. No one seems to notice how out of it he is.
ReplyDeleteBut there are signs that this facade covers up some deep emotional disturbance--as when Billy finds himself weeping for no reason, or the shocked reaction to the barbershop quartet, which leads him to realize that he's keeping "secrets from himself." There's more under the surface, and a symptom of his trauma seems to be this numbness and detachment. What's striking, perhaps, is how positive it all seems--"everything's okay, everyone just does what they have to do."