So goes the cycle of war

Finishing Slaughterhouse Five left more unanswered question that answers. As I was approaching the end I expected to come up with a conclusion about the book, but as I passed the pages, the book proved itself more difficult. My main inquiry since the beginning was to know whether Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut were the same person. In my previous Blog, “Behind a Crazy Man,” I mentioned some similarities between Kurt Vonnegut and Kilgore Trout, so now my inquiry was whether Billy, Vonnegut, and Trout were the same person.  Obviously the book didn´t state: “yes, they are the same people, “ or “no, they are completely different people,” but after reading specific parts of the book I concluded that they are not the same person, but Vonnegut built the two characters in reference to his own personality and past experiences. Kurt Vonnegut had a difficult life. His mother committed suicide when he was 22 years old, and he was recruited for the war at a very young age. These incidents may have made him a stronger person and to talk and describe death in a vague way, giving it no importance. The same happened to Billy, and in pg. 182 and 183 he described the death of his wife Veronica in event form and showed no feelings. Also the book is written in third person, but towards the end, in page 212 there´s a switch to first person: “No Billy and the rest were being marched into the ruins by their guards. I was there.” Vonnegut, as a writer described what Billy did after the Dresden bombing, but then he puts himself into the scene. Similarities between the three of them existed, but it will never be clear if Billy and Vonnegut were the same person.

There were parts of the book that I wanted to stop reading, but I had to, I wanted to know how it ended and what it taught. Since chapter one I knew how the book was going to end: “Poo-tee-weet,” but what did this bird´s song meant. In the class discussion we concluded that it meant that war left nothing. After wars and bombings all that is left is the cry of a bird, nothing about war is worth it and it will lead to nothing. But what did this war mean for Billy and Vonnegut. “His companions had insisted that he arm himself, since God only knew what sorts of killers might be in burrows in the face of the moon…soldiers who would never quit killing until they themselves were killed. “ War only leaves war. The winner will fade and be forgotten in a short period of time, but the feeling of revenge will never fade. “That was one of the things about the end of war: absolutely anybody who wanted a weapon could have one.” The weak will loose and the strong will win, but some one will always come in to take those places, war is a cycle that will never stop. And at the end of each cycle, before that start of a new one, all that is left in “Poo-tee-weet” (pg. 215) and “so it goes.”

Behind A Crazy Man

When Billy was in the veteran´s hospital he met Eliot Rosewater, the man who was assigned a bed next to Billy´s. Soon after Billy´s arrival Rosewater introduced Billy to science fiction books, by Kilgore Trout. Not much was said about Trout during Billy´s stay in the hospital, but some years after he encountered Trout in the streets of his home town, Ilium.

My first impression of Trout was that he was a crazy, mad, stubborn, rude, old man, because he was talking to a group of kids that worked for him, and he treated them very poorly. Also because he was the writer of many science fiction books with weird things in them. I didn´t like the character at all. Billy then talked with Trout and invited him to his 18^th anniversary celebration. During the diner party, Trout made fun of Maggie White: “All the great chefs in the world are there. It´s a beautiful ceremony. Just before the casket is closed, the mourners sprinkle parsley and paprika on the deceased.” (pg 171) Maggie had asked him what the most famous thing he had written was and he responded like this but everything was made up. They continue talking and Trout tells her the following: “I´m not the only one who´s listening. God is listening, too. And on Judgement Day he´s going to tell you all the things you said and did. If it turns out they´re bad things instead of good things, that’s too bad for you, because you´ll burn forever and ever. The burning never stops hurting.” (pg. 172) Again Trout is just making fun of Maggie and wanted to scare her.

The humor Trout showed, made me like him more. It reminded me of my grandfather, uncles and mother, all who have a sense of humor. They never hurt people, but they make fun of them or things, whenever they can.

Another thing that interested me about Trout was the topic of one of his books: “[Trout] had written a book about money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.” (pg 167) This portrays the society in which we live in today. People now-a-days think that money is everything, the need for power and wealth has become an obsession for many, that people will go to any expenses in order to achieve it. A clear example is the current situation in Colombia. The people´s obsession for money and power has made many corrupt, robbing the country’s money for their own benefit.  

Even though Trout is a made up character, I see Kurt Vonnegut reflected in him. Thanks to the reviews of the book, “our finest black-humorist…” (The Atlantic Monthly), and the constant humor used in Slaughterhouse Five, we can know that Vonnegut was a humorist. Also he was “known for his humanist beliefs,” (Wikipedia) which is represented in Trout´s book described above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

Do We Need (tortured) Entertainment?

In his blog “Entertaining Differences,”Alberto Andrade talks about the time when Billy was displayed in the Tralfamadorian zoo, and compares it the colonization period, when the Europeans used to display Indians in their courts. I agree with what he is saying, and I wonder how the Indians use to feel. They were people with different customs and views, and they were ridiculed by the Europeans who felt they were inferior, just because they were more “civilized” but who were they to judge whether they were more “civilized” and more human than the rest of the population of the world?

Alberto also mentioned circuses, and as I was reading the description of the zoo: “He was forty-four years old, on display under a geodesic dome…he was naked. The Tralfamadorians were interested in his body-all of it.” (pg. 111) I started thinking about animals, and how they could feel in the zoo. Just like Billy, “in a simulated Earthling habitat,”(112) many animal live in cages that the zoo keepers try to make as similar to their habitat, but many times they don´t succeed. They are isolated from their community and their families. Even though humans are consider the most intelligent race, animals still feel. How would you feel if at a young age you were taken from your parents and put in display, 24/7? On the contrary, Billy never says that he feels isolated or sad, like I believe animals feel, in fact the way he describes everything makes it seems as if he were enjoying all of the attention because every time he moved, “the crowd [of Tralfamadorians] went wild.” (pg 112) As Alberto stated, “these things are a product of his [Billy´s] imagination,” and it makes sense because in the zoo, Billy is the center of attention, which could reflect that he feels lonely in “earth” and is crazy enough to invent a world of his one.

A Shooting Disorder

Once Billy, Lazzaro and Edgar Derby were talking Lazzaro started talking about revenge, and that it was the sweetest thing in life. (139) Lazzaro´s personality and the way he talked reminded me of the shooting that happened in Norway a few months ago, and the Virginia Tech Massacre that occurred 2 years ago. Both were deadly shooting, that took many by surprise. In that first one a man called Anders Behring Breink bombed a few government buildings in also and then headed for an island summer camp for young people, killing about 80 people.

In Virginia Tech, a man called Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people, and then committed suicide. The people he killed were university campus students. He first killed two people at around 7:45 in the morning, and two hours later he killed the rest.

These two massacres, like many others can occur for many reasons. People may have different views, and reasons to do so, but when cases like these happen, especially when one man does everything, mental problems have to be involved.

When Paul Lazzaro talks about getting revenge with the Blue Fairy Godmother he says the following: “I´m gonna have him shot…He´ll get home after the war. He´ll be a big hero. The dames´ll be climbing all over him…a couple of years´ll go by. And then one day there´ll be a knock on his door. He´ll answer the door, and there´ll be a stranger out there. The stranger´ll ask him if he´s so-and-so. When he says he is, the stranger´ll will say, “Paul Lazzaro sent me.” And he´ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger´ll let him think a couple of seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life´s gonna be without a pecker. Then he´ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away.” (pg. 140) Before that he also tells Billy about a time when he killed a dog by making him eat a steak with knives inside, because the dog bit him.

 

Lazzaro´s case is different than Cho´s or Breink´s, because war can have a lot of effects of people, but still there has to be something wrong inside all of their heads. It is not normal to kill 80 young people, or 32 university students, not matter what your reasons or beliefs are. And it´s not normal to have revenge on a dog because he bit you.