I first read this book back in subbie year and I'm a little surprised at how much of what happens in it I have forgotten. Billy being lost behind enemy lines with Ronald Weary, Billy talking to the newspapers and upsetting his daughter, even Billy being placed in an alien zoo--all these things I just haven't thought about until reading through the book again and refreshing my memory. This doesn't mean I've completely forgotten everyone--Before reading again I could recall the nonlinear nature of the novel and a general sense of it being an entertaining read, but I think what has stuck with me most are the descriptions of the Tralfamadorians' way of seeing the world.
The Tralfamadorians are able to see past, present, and future all at once. They "can see where each star has been and where it is going, so that the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti" (110). I found this idea fascinating because I've always been interested in imagining ways the world could be perceived differently than how we already see it. Since their perception of time isn't limited, the Tralfamadorians know how the universe is destroyed--one of their own accidentally blows it up by pressing a button. The interesting part is that they don't mind. Billy asks if they can prevent the universe's destruction this from happening, to which the aliens respond, "He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way" (149). Of war, they add, "There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments--like today at the zoo" (150). Given their omnipresent perception, the Tralfamadorians don't question what will happen in the future and take a nonchalant view towards the end of all life. They are able to focus on the good times without fear of what they know will happen later.
These ideas have stuck with me because I found them interesting and unordinary, but what do they mean in the context of a novel that's based on the author's war experiences? Maybe the Tralfamadorians' ideals allude to the way one might cope with trauma. When something traumatic happens the mind may just blot it out from memory, like how the aliens ignore unpleasant moments. Accepting that a traumatic event can't be changed is also a part of coping. Alternatively, the Tralfamadorian's outlook on the world could represent the way people view history. When we read about historical events, we understand that we're reading about the past and that we are unable to change it. Additionally, many things we read about we didn't experience firsthand ourselves. From a position where everything has already happened (and where we weren't a part of what happene), we can look at events in the disassociated way that the Tralfamadorians do. I think part of the Tralfamadorians might be Vonnegut incorporating the views of people that didn't experience the war or the firebombing of Dresden into his novel.
The idea that the Tralfamadorian psychology is very similar to that of someone who is trying to deal with a traumatic event is very interesting, and I think that accepting it as fact is one of the ways that Billy is able to cope with WWII and the bombing of Dresden. The whole "so it goes" concept is very Tralfamadorian, in that we can't change the way events play out, and therefore should focus instead on those moments that bring us joy. Additionally, I think this minimization in Billy's head of the atrocities being committed helps him understand how any human being could possibly sentence a whole city and all of its residents to be destroyed, and helps him come to terms with the war without going mad (or rather, any more mad than he already is).
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ReplyDeleteI definitely subscribe to the theory that Billy is a traumatized, brain-damaged man following his plane crash and the book is the story of him revisiting his damaged memories. In this case, the Tralfamadorians' philosophy that time is set in stone definitely helps Billy cope with his recollections of the war. He's reviewing his history and coming to terms with it, which is how Vonnegut frames the novel.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that a lot of people I've spoken to think that Vonnegut is treating the Tralfamadorians ironically or using them to illustrate some fault in some group of people or something. Your argument that their perceptions of war would be similar to those of people who weren't in it makes a lot of sense, and their comments about simply avoiding bad moments do seem... I don't know, naive or something--unwise, but I, for whatever reason, took the the Tralamadoorians pretty seriously while I was reading. They seemed at peace and relatively wise in that typical sci-fi-alien-visiting-earth-and-looking-down-on-how-we-treat-the-planet sort of way. However Vonnegut plays with that trope some by making them look at Billy like he's dumb when he says that humans are too violent, so I don't know if I can actually make that claim. Maybe it's just that free will seems like something Vonnegut might actually doubt.
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