As I was sitting in the far corner of my English classroom, I was catching on some sleep and dreaming about the strange and bizarre Traflamadorians from the novel Slaughter House 5. For some reason I seemed to somehow come across an akward moment. As I slept I sort of felt out of place in time and in space. Time didn't affect me at all, instead I seemed to be surfing through the space fabrics of time. I really didn't know what was happening, one moment I was sitting in a class at MIT studying the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the next moment I was seemed to be at the age of 35 changing diapers of a 5 year old while cooking breakfast for my wife. And the next moment it seemed to me I got slapped hit in the face and yelled at by my English teacher. Wait was this for real? Was I really unstuck in time? Was I travelling in time? Well the first thing I could tell you is 1. my ear drums were ringing 2. getting hit in the face 100000000000000000000000000years from now and getting hit now both hurt and 3. what was that for? couldn't you just tap me on the shoulder? So woah reality check am I crazy? Well after reading Slaughter House 5 I really think I could relate to Billy the Pilgrim. But is this guy really unstuck in time like I am? No I don't believe so. You could call me a optimist if you were nice, if you were not so nice you could call me a day dreamer and if you were a jerk you could say I couldn't go to MIT or just get married or have kids or achieve the impossible. So like me is Billy really unstuck in time? Wow I can't believe I keep on bringing up this I seem to put so much emphasis on the question....hmmm the irony. It's ironic how Vonnegut also puts emphasis on things by using repetition. It seems to me that when Billy does seem to get unstuck in time Vonnegut always puts some emphasis by somehow repeat in a indirect way of the fragile state of mind of Billy. In my opinion I think Billy is just torn away by war or just crazy. Or maybe Billy is just sort of looking back in time(excluding the whole entire nonsense of the Tralfamadorians, FYI I think Vonnegut is using that event as a gateway to express his views of existentialism). He could be just a war veteran that is suffering from depression and reliving the horrors of the war every moment. Anyways, I better be signing off before being hit again by my parents for spending too much time on the internet. Feeling pain signifies reality.
Signing off,
Sunny Side of Slaughter House 5
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ReplyDeleteGreat writing - very stylistic.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't approve of English-teacher-related violence :) , I did like a lot of the ideas here. It's probably very important to dream as it is one thing that can never really be taken from us. Maybe Billy had so many things stripped from him during the war and shortly thereafter, he had to create something to compensate for his losses. (?)
if you don't mind me asking, who is this?
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