Vonnegut Explication

The setting varies in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five many times but an important setting in the story was on the planet Tralfamadore when Billy Pilgrim was captured and put into the habitat. “And Billy traveled in time to the zoo on Tralfamadore. He was forty-four years old, on display under a geodesic dome (142).” Later on, Billy continues to explain his geodesic dome that he will live in for six months. The Tralfamadorians was a new planet to Billy but could tell he was in a different culture. Billy probably knew that life was different on their planet, so he asked the guide about their society. There culture views war and other catastrophic events as just something that has to be and they can not prevent it from happening. Billy understands time different then his wife or the American and English prisoners. Billy is the only person at that time that had been to the planet Tralfamadore which is the reason why throughout the book he functions differently than the surrounding people in the story.

One character that effected Billy’s conflict was Ronald Weary. “Weary looked like Tweedledum or Tweedledee, all bundled up for battle. He was short and thick. He had every piece of equipment he had ever been issued…(50).” Ronald Weary was an eighteen years old and appeared to have psychological problems. He believed that well they were running from the Germans behind lines, that the other two men were part of the Three Musketeers. Nobody else saw them that way but rather Weary and Pilgrim were alone. Weary wanted to be a hero and was absorbed in the war which made him an antagonist to Billy. Billy didn’t like being in the war and was conflicted by his time travel taking back to the war. After Weary died, he was able to convince some army men to try and make Billy pay for supposedly killing Weary. This made it even more difficult whenever Billy traveled in time to wartimes. He is always confronted by some Americans that want to kill him.

Also, there are different points of view throughout the story. At the beginning of the story, it is told in first person limited because Vonnegut uses “I.” “I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967 (1).” He later has conversations with friends and continues to be in first person limited. Then the story changes to third person limited like when Billy was behind enemy lines with three other Americans during the war. “Weary had gathered the front of Billy’s field jacket into his hands (60).” It continues throughout them trying to escape from behind the German side. Occasionally their was scenes written in objective, “There was an old typewriter in the rumpus room…His (Billy) bare feet were blue and ivory (35).” Vonnegut wrote in multiple narrations because the story was suppose to be scrambled to be difficult to follow and writing different narratives is hard to figure out who is the narrator.

The conflict was that the time traveling needed to be neutralized in order for the story to conclude; otherwise the issues Billy is dealing with would continue on indefinitely. “It (Dresden) looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim (189).” Billy knew it was about to be destroyed because of his time traveling and was able to take in the beauty of the city. He was battling with himself about this time travel but at this moment just took it neutral like the Tralfamadorians do about war. Billy has complications throughout the book when he would just begin to feel comfortable in that time period he would travel to another time unexpectedly. When Billy was in his geodesic dome, he found out a lot about the Tralfamadorians about the way they view life and time. After learning their philosophy when the aliens are talking about how they destroyed the Universe. This directly relates to his death because he knows he must die that day even though you could try to survive