War seems to be a place to be quite serious. It is a place for young men to be molded into soldiers without much regard to individual personality. Billy Pilgrim does not seem to fall into the typical personality for most soldiers. In chapter 8, Billy says “One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters” (164 Vonnegut). We hear most about individuals who have character in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, but not so much about those who are fit to be a good soldier. In other war stories, like All Quiet On The Western Front, we hear much more about good soldiers. Ones who are fit to fight and, for the most part, successful. Billy is not built to be a soldier and It almost seems as if war doesn't change him that much because Pilgrim is very much himself throughout the story. He is a little oblivious, and I think his lack of awareness contributes to his ability to escape from the pressure to be a “cookie cutter” soldier. It did not make him a particularly good or successful soldier, but he kept his imagination. I am always curious as to where his imagination will bring us next. I wonder how different the story would be if he did conform to the desired mentality of a soldier.

Even though Slaughterhouse Five is told in a light hearted way, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, has had many traumatic experiences. Being a soldier is especially is difficult and horrific, but Billy has endured lots of incidents in and out of war. While on Tralfamadore, it seemed as if the Tralfamadorians were always peaceful. Even though they are not, they have the ability to chose with ease what point in time they want to focus on.

In chapter 5, Billy Pilgrim was given a piece of advice by the Tralfamadorians; “That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones” (117).

I think that Billy wants very much to implement the advice the Tralfamadorians gave him into his life but cannot completely ignore the bad times. He tells the story of terrible times as if it were not a big deal, and it seems to me that he is trying to make the bad moments seem less bad, even if he can’t forget about them, so he can feel more peaceful like the Tralfamadorians. I also think that Vonnegut put this into his story as a piece of advice for the reader. We are “earthlings” as well, so their advice is also directed at us. I wonder how difficult it would be to try and ignore the horrors of war, and if i would handle it any better than Billy Pilgrim or Vonnegut. Is ignoring the bad and pretending it didn’t happen really better than coming to terms with it and learning other ways to cope?

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, there is a big presence of science fiction. Living through the war and the firebombing of Dresden would have been a very traumatic experience. One that would leave the people who experienced it wishing they could have avoided it.

In chapter 5, Billy Pilgrim and Rosewater read lots of science fiction books while in the hospital. They were left hurt and mentally frazzled “so they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help” (101).

The science fiction aspect of this Slaughterhouse Five seems to be Vonnegut’s attempt to reinvent himself. He is caught in between wanting to express what happened to him and his comrades while wishing he could have changed his reality. The time travel, aliens and all of the fictitious aspects of this novel is the part of Vonnegut wishing he could change his past and using science fiction as a coping method. The truthful parts of the novel is the part of Vonnegut wanting to document and share his experiences. I wonder if deceiving himself by using science fiction actually helps him cope, or if it just contributes to his stress and confusion.

In Chapter 4, before Billy Pilgrim gets taken by the Tralfalmadorians, he watches a movie about the American bombers in World War II. After seeing it “he came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again” (73). Living through a bombing must have been very traumatic for Billy. Visualizing this particular movie in reverse seems like it is wishful thinking. It is evident that he wants to go back in time and reverse the incidents that have happened, but what would he want to change? Would he change anything if he could?

In chapter one of Slaughterhouse Five/The Children's Crusade, Mary O’Hare’s actions give us a glimpse of a motherly perspective on war. Mary’s anger and exasperation towards such young people fighting seems to be influential for Vonnegut. Even though he is causal in the way he acknowledges it, the title and the recurring theme of the youth of the soldiers fighting make it obvious that it’s important to the story.

Mary O’Hare is upset because “She didn’t want her babies or anybody else’s babies killed in wars.” (15) In reply to Mary accusing him of writing a book about war that will “Pretend (Vonnegut and his comrades) were men instead of babies”(14), Vonnegut said “I’ll call it (his book) ‘The Children’s Crusade.’”(15)

Like the characters in All Quiet On The Western Front and Night, Kurt Vonnegut is exposed to so much terror at a very young age. I wonder if he feels as if his youth was taken from him. Also, in the title, the word crusade connotes a very violent and passionate fight. Vonnegut tells the story of the Dresden Bombing very casually, and it doesn't really fit with the image the title gives us. He does not show the reader his actual feelings or horrors he went through. I am curious to see if he will share more of his emotions and what they might tell us.

In Slaughterhouse Five, when Kurt Vonnegut is describing his experience with WWII, he uses humor as a coping method for the real fear and pain he feels inside. We see Vonnegut in the form of Billy Pilgrim, a young boy in the war that he has no idea what he is doing there. Billy gets lost behind enemy lines and get captured by the germans. All through the describing of these scenes, Billy doesn't seem very effected by any of it. It is if he is just going through the motions of a normal day. I think this is how Billy got through it. He dampened his emotions to everything he saw and decided to keep the mindset of the 40-year-old former hobo in the train car with him, "This ain't too bad. This ain't nothing at all." (70) This way of writing about being caught by the germans in WWII is very unlike Night, by Elie Wiesel. Wiesel made an effort to show the horrors of the concentration camps as real as possible to the reader. Vonnegut describes his experience very differently. Of course, Vonnegut and Wiesel were in different situations, but they did still go through some similar experiences. Vonnegut stats his experiences very plainly and lets the reader take the understand from them with their own ability. The hardships are less forced on the reader than they were with night.

While Vonnegut seems to be masking his real pains of the war in the beginning of the book, i wonder if later on he will eventually open up and let us into how it all really felt for him during the bombing of Dresden.

          So far in the book, Kurt Vonnegut has written his story with almost no logical order of events. Between paragraphs he switches from his experience in WWII, to his fantasy life of Billy Pilgrim. The character Billy, claims to the world that she was abducted by Aliens and was brought to a planet called Tralfalmadore. On Tralfalmadore, the people there can see in 4D. By this he means that they have a full dimension of comprehension greater than ours. Time is not a factor in their lives. Events don't happen in a linear order. They can take a life and look at it through all events at anytime. And so, being never die on Tralfalmadore. "When a Tralfalmadorian 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." (27) Slaughterhouse Five is written in the same way that the Tralfalmadorians see. There is no order in time of the book because there is no need for one. We are reading as a Tralfalmadorian would.

          As Vonnegut leads us through this jumbled up book, I wonder where we will end up. There are a few different story lines going around. How will all these stories come together in the climax of the book?

Example Posts - Meets and Exceeds

The following are two posts that may serve as models for your own. These posts use The Grapes of Wrath as the considered text, but the requirements are the same. The first is an example of a post that MEETS the standard; the second is an example that EXCEEDS the standard.

Meets:

It became apparent in chapter 5 that the narrative of the Joad family is only one perspective of the struggles people faced in the 1930s. The use of racial slurs and culturally insensitive language reminds us that the Joads, although they are a poor family lacking many basic resources, they do have the privilege of being white. The use of the word "nigger" and the highly insensitive way of speaking about Native Americans remind us that whiteness was a privilege that could elevate the status of even the most desperate farmer.

I wonder how this theme of race and culture will continue to develop over the course of the novel. What will the presence of race and racism continue to teach us about the social fabric of the U.S. in the '30s?

Exceeds:

The description of the land in Chapter 5 tells us a lot about the tensions arising out of the industrialization of farming. The physical connection to the land is broken, and this seems to lead to a bigger gap that transcends the physical.

In chapter 5, we learn that the tractor driver "could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth...Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses" (35, 36).

Humans are being replaced by machines, and these machines will never love and appreciate the land (and what the land provides) as much as the humans who farmed it with their own hands. I am curious to see how this theme continues to play out in the novel - will the divide between the human and the machine continue to grow, and will it cause the farmers' struggle to become increasingly bitter and devastating?

Notes:

• Please consider your grammar and spelling. These posts should be thoughtful and well-crafted. 
• As you can see, the posts need not be long. A few sentences, or a small paragraph or two is sufficient. Remember - quality over quantity! 
• Please title your post purposefully - your title should help give a heads-up about the content of your post.