How Did Billy Pilgrim Lose Control
“Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren't necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next (Vonnegut 23)”. Billy Pilgrim has lost control over one of the most important principles we humans tend to treasure in life—time—but he also feels eerie in performing in his own life. Billy Pilgrim the protagonist, has become unstuck in time. Billy was capture and incarcerated by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and throughout the novel he travels from life both before and after the war, and his travels to the planet Tralfamadore. Billy is unable to control which period of his life he lands in, he has seen his birth and death many times. It is not in chronological order, it jumps back and forth in time and
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Thousands of human carcasses were incinerated on huge funeral pyres or with flamethrowers. Vonnegut's perception of this horrific misery was amplified further during the days of his liberation. Confined in the Russian zone, he spent time with Nazi concentration camp survivors from Eastern Europe — particularly, from Auschwitz and from Birkenau — listening to these survivors' gruesome stories of the Holocaust’’(SparkNotes). Per to Singh, Sukhbir , “the American writer Kurt Vonnegut was not only witnessed, as a German prisoner of war, the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces on the night of 13 February 1945, but also survived the ensuing fire-storm that devoured the city in one of Dresden’s slaughterhouses, hence the title of his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Witnessing the massacre of 135,000 innocent civilians left Vonnegut mentally traumatized and spiritually paralyzed. Understandably, the horror of the disaster haunted him for long even after the Second World War”. Vonnegut uses Billy as
Thousands of human carcasses were incinerated on huge funeral pyres or with flamethrowers. Vonnegut's perception of this horrific misery was amplified further during the days of his liberation. Confined in the Russian zone, he spent time with Nazi concentration camp survivors from Eastern Europe — particularly, from Auschwitz and from Birkenau — listening to these survivors' gruesome stories of the Holocaust’’(SparkNotes). Per to Singh, Sukhbir , “the American writer Kurt Vonnegut was not only witnessed, as a German prisoner of war, the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces on the night of 13 February 1945, but also survived the ensuing fire-storm that devoured the city in one of Dresden’s slaughterhouses, hence the title of his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Witnessing the massacre of 135,000 innocent civilians left Vonnegut mentally traumatized and spiritually paralyzed. Understandably, the horror of the disaster haunted him for long even after the Second World War”. Vonnegut uses Billy as