Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps this petty pace from day to day, yet what free will do we have to change it?
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Essay Topic from Year 1986: Some works of literature use the element of time in a distinct way. The chronological sequence of events may be altered, or time may be suspended or accelerated. Choose a novel, an epic, or a play of recognized literary merit and show how the author’s manipulation of time contributes to the effectiveness of the work as a whole.
Slaughterhouse Five is a very blatant and poignant novel by Kurt Vonnegut, one of the well-known American authors of the twentieth century. Having fought in World War II and been a prisoner of war, Vonnegut’s main intention for this particular novel was to promote an antiwar ideology here in America. Yet, while this novel acts as an antiwar instigation, it also questions humanity’s ideas of free will, by placing the events of Billy Pilgrim’s life in random order, allowing fate to take its place, rendering free will a manifested illusion.
To understand this complex system that Vonnegut has created, the audience must understand when the events of Billy’s life are occurring, whether it be in the past, present, or future. Vonnegut does reveal that Billy is currently fighting in World War II and is being held prisoner in Dresden. It is from here that Billy becomes unstuck in time and begins to jump throughout different times of his life in the past and future.
The events of Billy’s past are certainly simple and normal things that many people go through, such as memories from childhood, getting married, and having children. Yet, while these events happen in random ordering, we as the audience know they would have occurred in some linear order, yet this order of events will later prove to be insignificant as Vonnegut later proves, after Billy travels in to the future with aliens who have kidnapped him.
The importance of the aliens is that they are four-dimensional and perceive all moments of time as a whole, where everything is happening simultaneously. This concept of time the aliens have is what contradicts Billy’s perception and concept of free will. They see all events of time, and even know when the universe will end, yet they know there is nothing they can do about it, because fate has predetermined them throughout. This notion of fate is what causes Billy’s epiphany that free will is all an illusion. He realizes that if fate as rendered all events of time in their final place, even the events of his own life, then they are insignificant to the final outcome of his own life, which by definition has also been predetermined. This explains why Vonnegut places the events of Billy’s life in random order to show the audience it doesn’t matter how or when they occur on the timeline because the end result is the same throughout.
This is certainly a very complex way that Vonnegut demonstrates how we as humans view time and the control we have over our lives within that spectrum. Overall, he demonstrates how all events in time can happen altogether and we cannot change them deliberately with free will. Yet, who is to say that Vonnegut is correct about fate or free will. These contradictions and assumptions are something that mankind has questioned and argued for centuries, and most likely will for now and throughout eternity.
Word Count: 490 words
This first chapter of the novel is much different from any of the other chapters, and acts more of a prequel to the novel instead of an actual part of the story. It is also in this chapter that Vonnegut speaks to the audience directly about the contents of his novel. He notes that the novel is based on real events, even from his own life. He also introduces the phrase, “So it goes”, which is a motif that runs throughout the novel. This phrase indicates the concept of time that Vonnegut presents, in that there are events occurring that are likely to happen again. However, Vonnegut sees these events as being insignificant, due to the illusion of free will, and this phrase seems to help him brush off these events. The audience gets to decide if they agree or disagree with Vonnegut’s opinion, but so it goes….
More importantly, is the end of this chapter, where Vonnegut claims that he knows people shouldn’t look back and he is now writing a pillar of salt. This is a reference to the story of when Moses led the Hebrews to the Promise Land and two people looked back and turned to salt. Again, this goes back to his ideology that time repeats itself over and over again. It is argued that those who don’t learn the past are doomed to repeat it, but Vonnegut believes these efforts are in vain. History will repeat itself anyway and human free will cannot change that, so why look back?
Time is forever, and so it goes….
Below is a link to Vonnegut’s official website if you want to learn more about him and his works.
Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, has been considered to be one of the most controversial novels of its time and was banned from being read in schools throughout the United States. This controversy arose from many issues within the novel, such as its illicit sexual content, profane language of troops and soldiers, characters who were homosexual, and that novels overall irreverent tone. However, while schools were banning it from their literary classes, there was no actual legislation in effect that mandated Vonnegut’s novel be blacklisted and banned. The response was the court case Island Trees School District v. Pico, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reviewed the First Amendment and concluded that local schools and school boards did not have the right to remove certain books because their personal opinions conflicted with the contents and ideas of the novel. The novel is now accepted more than in past years and is still taught in schools throughout the nation.
Below is a link of what the court case, Board of Education v. Pico, consisted of and what arguments were made that formed its final conclusion.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0457_0853_ZO.html
There is a quote from the end of the novel that Billy reads on a woman’s locket that had a profound meaning to me. It goes:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference”.
This seems to be the resolution to the novel and an answer the Billy Pilgrim has been searching for through his travels. He has been wondering what events he can change, because according the aliens (who even know how the universe will end) everything is predetermined and already happening, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Yet, we feel that we are in control of our own lives, and cannot leave it all up to fate, because that would jeopardize our concept of free will. However, Billy reasons that he could have been one of the soldiers who died in the Dresden Bombing, but since he didn’t, he figured that life was predetermined and free will in humanity is all an illusion. So where is the wisdom to tell the difference between fate and free will? That’s the irony, there isn’t any, and that’s just the way I think Vonnegut would have wanted to end his novel: with a mildly hilarious joke in a world dominated by wars and destruction.
While I feel like I should disagree with Vonnegut, I’m still not sure how if feel about free will or fate. I always believed we were created for a purpose, and our choices determined how and when we got to that purpose, but whose to say who is right and wrong. Maybe there is no wisdom to tell the difference and things just happen. I hope I find the answer one day.
As it turns out, this quote if part of the religious Serenity Prayer. Here is a link to read the entire prayer:
Slaughterhouse Five was made into a movie back in 1972, starring Michael Sacks as Billy Pilgrim, and is directed by George Roy Hill. Hill said that he based the movie as close to the book as we could, since we all seem to discover that the movie is almost never as good as the book. Yet, it became popular among other science fiction movies that were becoming popular, such as Star Wars, The Planet of the Apes series, and Soylent Green.
Below is a formed trailer of the movie that was made in 1972. It shows Billy Pilgrim in Dresden and how he is unstuck in time, bouncing into the past, present, and future.
Harry Emerson Fosdick quoted that “the tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst”, and I think that Vonnegut would certainly agree. War, as Vonnegut conveys, has devastating consequences that cannot be forgotten because if they are, they are doomed to repeat themselves again, as Billy Pilgrim realizes. Some of the physical events that Billy witnesses are some of the most horrific scenes imaginable, such as watching people starve and die on the train to Dresden, watch his comrades die in battle and in the bombing of Dresden, and experiencing ostracization from some of the other soldiers. All of these events are the results of war that Vonnegut himself saw and witnessed fighting in the war himself, and he didn’t want anyone to experience what he did if he could help it through his literature and writing.
However, while war affects the physical spectrum of Billy’s world, it also affects him mentally. While Billy fights in the war, he also jumps throughout different time periods in his life, both in the past and future. He experiences memories from when he was a young boy to a young man and in the future after being captured and kidnapped by aliens. However, it is argued that Billy is not time traveling, but is suffering from post tramatic stress syndrome because of the war. He is reflecting on old memories and even creating new ones all for the sake of escaping the war psychologically.
Here is a video that shows some of the images from World War II. I myself had the privilege to travel to Europe and visit Dachau, one of the first concentration camps, and just being their game me chills. I can only imagine how people like Vonnegut managed to survive after going to hell and back.
Vonnegut explores the world of the fourth dimension, which is of course, time. Of course, we as humans are three-dimensional and view time as being linear, as does Billy Pilgrim, the novels main character. However, he claims to have been kidnapped by aliens who are four-dimensional beings and can move throughout time. This ability enables them to see all the events of time simultaneously, which to them, have already occurred. This happens to be a very important key to the novel. The aliens do not see the point of free will in humans, since they know what is going to happen and there is nothing they could do to change it. They leave it up to fate. In turn, the audience must decide, do we really have free will, or is everything predestined and shall come to pass on its own accordance? While I am struggling with the question myself, I have found that Vonnegut still holds that people have the choice, such as to embrace one another, work out solutions, and avoid the hardships of war at all costs.
Here’s a video about the fourth dimension that might help you think about the question more in dept.
Slaughterhouse Five was first published in 1969 and became one of the more popular science fiction novels that were on the rise within society. However, this book was actually written as one of Vonnegut’s response to World War II, which he had fought in. He aimed at showing the destructiveness of war and the effects it could have on individuals who had to return to civilian life has he did. With so much war going on with the Korean War, Vietnam War, and the Cold War, it’s no wonder that the book found its place within society here in the United States. Nonetheless, Vonnegut had intended for it to create an anti-war opinion in a world that was becoming enveloped by war itself.
Here is a link to an essay, that helps demonstrate how Vonnegut’s novel is to be interpreted as an antiwar novel.
Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11, 1922 and died recently on April 11, 2007. He is claimed to be one of the best American Writers of the 20th Century, having written Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, The Sirens of Titan, and most notably, Slaughterhouse Five. As a young adult, he went overseas and fought in World War II for the Allies, he was captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in a camp, known as Dresden. While imprisoned, he became the leader of the POWs because he spoke some German, but still suffered under Nazi cruelty. The camp was soon bombed and Vonnegut was one of the few, fortunate survivors, and was able to later returned home. Back in the United States, he began to emphasise humanist beliefs, and even became the president of the American Humanist Association. He also became a socialist, after being inspired by Eugene V. Debs and Powers Hapgood. These new ideas he was practicing can be found in many of his works, including Slaughterhouse Five.
Here is a picture of Kurt Vonnegut.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 