Billy To A Child example essay topic

Slaughter house 5 "We had been foolish virgins in the war right at the end of childhood" Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut "The children's crusade started in 1213 when two monks got the idea of raising armies of children in France and Germany, and selling them in North Africa as slaves. Thirty thousand children volunteered thinking they were going to Palestine. (p. 16) The Children's Crusade and the World Wars are similar because of the drafting of the innocent to do the duties of a nation. The children who volunteered were the "idle and deserted children who generally swarm in great cities, nurtured on vice and daring", they thought they were going to Palestine but really they were being sold as slaves. Children are naive and very gullible, trusting in the words of the adults around them. They also believe that they have a grasp on their lives and control of the obstacles in life one discovers through experience when, in reality they have exactly the opposite. The young who fought in Dresden went off to war without knowing what to expect, much like the Children's Crusade volunteers.

Good fortune might have been one of the promises sworn in boot camp but what they received was the complete scythe of silence. Left behind, untagged and forgotten on the battleground, their bodies disintegrated into the earth leaving the young's' potentials undone. When Billy Pilgrim went to war "He didn't look like a soldier at all, he looked like a filthy flamingo". Not ready to go out the door like a child, Billy is unprepared to go to war.

No helmet, no protective armor, weapon or proper footwear he is as ready as a child who has not woken yet. Billy is clearly a child in many ways: he is na " ive, gullible, ignorant, and lacks historical judgment and experience. "The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance". This clearly illustrated the child-like person Billy is. Instead of duck and cover, Billy stands there as if he were playing a board game he didn't want to play and in protest did not move his player.

He doesn't truly grasp the distraught situation he is in and he most certainly doesn't comprehend it. By not looking out for his own interest he becomes an infantile creature depending on the civil duties of others. Roland weary saves Billy's life, though in vain, multiple times. His immaturity is such an annoyance throughout the book, you feel sorry for him.

Like a child he doesn't think of the consequences of his actions, it is as if Billy is a child trapped in the body of a twenty one year old man. Throughout Slaughter House Five there is a redundant occurrence of Billy traveling back to his childhood. Its as if Billy is mentally unstuck in time instead of him being the revolutionary of time travel. The constant almost rythm atic return to the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool and to the family trip to the Grand Canyon imply that Billy has regressed into childhood given certain situations. When Billy commits himself to a psychiatric facility "the doctors agreed: he was going crazy. They didn't think it had anything to do with the war.

They were sure Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon". (P. 100) " Billy Pilgrim on the day after his morphine night in the British compound woke up and sat up in bed, it wasn't the cold that had awakened Billy. It was the animal magnetism that was making him shiver and itch. The animal magnetism was coming from behind him. If Billy had to guess the source, he would have said that there was a vampire bat hanging upside down on the wall behind him. Billy moved down toward the foot of his cot before turning to look at whatever it was. He didn't want the animal to drop into his face and maybe claw his eyes or bite off his big nose". (p. 136-137) Scenes such as this in the book are a clear metaphor comparing Billy to a child.

Only children anticipate monster-like beasts whose intentions are to hurt or kill them. The young fear the world around them and use imaginary beasts as a way to characterize their fears. Monsters like the boogieman or ghosts are representations of fear instilled by the world from lack of understanding painful situations that every human child encounters. War is itself a childish thing, fighting instead of working out problems between nations, cities, and friends. However it is a necessary evil, it is a villain and a hero all at once. Saving lives and taking others it has its purpose.

In this book the soldiers were portrayed as childish individuals lacking in the experience, which sets one away from childhood and onward to adulthood. "You were just babies then!" says it perfectly clear. No parent would give a child a loaded gun; it should be the same for those who are not yet fully psychologically developed. Billy Pilgrim is one of the many undeveloped in this war.

Billy inside is as much of a child as a ten-year-old playing video games all day. When Mrs. O'Hare's opinion of Billy's war book is made clear Billy states "Tell you what I'll call it the children's crusade" Later on Billy recognizes, though he would rather pretend to have been a man, that he himself was indeed a child fighting in a war in which he could not fully comprehend. Like newly orphaned babes they were forced to serve as slaves for the duties of a nation. bio: Vonnegut, Kurt Slaughter House Five.