Tralfamadorian Concept Of Time For Billy example essay topic

Upon the completion of Slaughterhouse-Five I concluded, that perhaps Vonnegut had attempted to convey several different conclusions in writing his story. My inquiry did not stem from the group oral presentations necessarily, but rather from the seminars after completing the novel. I was given the statement "Vonnegut believes time should be flexible", and I was intrigued by my findings. I realized that Vonnegut's point in structuring the novel as he did, in the non-linear fashion illustrates his perception of time.

He based his book on the idea of time traveling. Although many of the concepts of time that we hear are through the characters of the Tralfamadorians, Vonnegut's voice is behind each philosophy. Since those seminars, Vonnegut's concept of time has captivated me, and has been recurring in my Slaughterhouse-Five work. Our group oral presentations also included a presentation about time, and Vonnegut's choice to use time travel as opposed to dreams or memories. We decided that time travel was a means to add a science fiction aspect to the novel, as well as a way to project his viewpoint of time.

Another conclusion that has fascinated me was that of the illusion of free will. Vonnegut forced us to question whether or not free will truly exists. The Tralfamdorians, who believe that moments are structured and that moments in time have already occurred, have an attitude of accepting their fate knowing they have no way of changing what is to come. If time is structured, as Vonnegut proposed, there would be no such thing as free will, because all would be decided before it even took place. Even after the seminars, and group presentations, Vonnegut's concept of free will being an illusion, is still very much a question to me; a question I hope to discover an answer to. These conclusions are connected as the concepts are both derived from the Tralfamadorians.

They both deal with Billy's need to escape the realities he is forced to face, and his ability to acknowledge his fate. My new-found inquiry questions whether Vonnegut uses the Tralfamadorian concepts to find a solution to something? Perhaps the Tralfamadorian concept of time is attempting to find a solution to accept things as they may come. The Tralfamadorians exist in the fourth dimension. They have a perception of time that allows them to look at life's finer moments, and a philosophy of acceptance of all things. They look at time as a collection of moments that exist simultaneously rather than linear progression.

They preach to Billy about accepting his fate, as he is powerless in changing it. Rationalizing death is made convenient by the fourth dimension. They dismiss death simply stating, "so it goes", believing that no one really dies since at a different moment in time, he or she is still exists. When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'so it goes'. (p. 27) Spoken by Billy Pilgrim, this passage signifies a comfort in the phrase "so it goes".

Billy can begin to accept all the death he has witnessed if he accepts as true that although someone may be dead in one moment, he or she is alive in all other moments of his or her life. Death becomes no more permanent then a certain moment which has been revisited countless times. The Tralfamadorians wish for people not to worry about senseless things they are incapable of changing; which according to them is everything, past, present and future. Although many may argue that Billy is hallucinating in his experiences on Tralfamadore, this is his way of escaping a world he sees as destroyed by war, a world he no longer understands. Vonnegut is successful in using the Tralfamadorians to make us as the readers question the existence of free will. I found it intriguing how he used aliens that resembled toilet plungers to make us doubt something we have never questioned before.

They believe that all moments have already occurred therefore they are able to accept their respective fates, needing not believe in free will. According to one Tralfamadorian, If I hadn't spent so much studying Earthlings... I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will. ' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will (p. 86). The Tralfamadorians disregard any possibility of the idea of free will, believing that humans are the only beings to believe in such a thing.

They maintain that it is an illusion that we as humans have, and aim to have Billy believe the same. When Billy becomes unstuck in time, he is able to revisit moments of his past where there was an absence of free will. As a young boy, Billy was thrown into the water by his father on the notion of sink or swim. When Billy chose to sink to the bottom, he was brought to the top against his will. He was conscripted into a war he wished not to fight against his will. He went into the war as a joke, improperly trained and clothed, as a chaplain's assistant.

He survived the war by mere coincidence, when the properly clothed, properly trained, willing soldiers died. Billy's survival shows that if he had trained hard and been appropriately clothed perhaps he would have died along with the rest. His survival is evidence that makes free will an illusion. The most probable answer to my inquiry is that Vonnegut uses the concept of time to eliminate pain from death, and emphasize fate rather than free will. Vonnegut creates the Tralfamadorian concept of time for Billy to escape the harshness of the world and to attempt to have Billy live a Tralfamadorian life in a human world. However maybe in placing the philosophies of time and freewill in the mouths of aliens rather than human characters, giving the novel a science fiction side, Vonnegut is attempting to show us the consequences of the avoidance of reality.

Perhaps Vonnegut attempts to show us that although we may act like free will exists, we are really living in the absence of it. Vonnegut may possibly be trying to illustrate that we are locked into our fate, and fighting it is pointless. Or maybe Vonnegut uses the Tralfamdorians to simply show that a moment can last forever if we let it live on in our memories.