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Here are some pictures from the Encyclopedia of Mental Health. It talks about time travel and mental health!!!! 

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And so it goes..

After our class discussion and finishing the book I believe that this book was written as  way to cope with PTSD. The signs are very clear that Billy had PTSD or a form of it, because of how much he would jump around talking about certain events. I also think when Barbara was so upset towards her dad when he was talking about the aliens was an important part of the novel, because it shows that the PTSD was not only effected Billy but also family and others around him. I think the reason why aliens were incorporated was because it was a way to show Billy’s ptsd and also be kinda funny. The book is a satirical novel so I believe that Kurt tried to increase a weird aspect like aliens to make the reader laugh..if that makes sense. I expected an ending that was clear, but we were left with “poo-tee-weet”. I think that is a “aha” satirical moment that Kurt was trying to be funny. Even though all this shit the final result is just and so it goes or life goes on. I agree with Mikaila though…is there a sequel?! The way the book ends there has to be or someone else has to take matters into their own hands and make one.

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Sam’s email is down

Hey guys, Just a heads up: my email is down right now, so I might not be able to respond to you very quickly today. Ideally it will be back up soon. 

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Slaughter House

Billy is on his way to a convention to Montreal in a plane. Because of Billy time travel abilities he knows that the plane is going to crash so he closes his eyes and he is sent back to 1944. I think this is the first book we have read where the protagonist is able to control their time travel abilities. The book doesn't really elaborate on how billy does this but we can only assume it has something to do with the tralfamadorians. He travels back to the plane crash and he is the only survivor. He is taken to the hospital where he has dreams of his 1st time in the slaughterhouse. He flashes back to Dresden before the bombing and remembers a jar of syrup and a table spoon that he found. Billy hasn't had anything to eat so find this jar of syrup for pregnant women was like winning the lottery. On the last day before the city is bombed and American turned Nazi offers the americans a proposal. “Campbell offered the Americans food now, steaks and mashed potatoes and gravy and mince pie, if they would join the Free American Corps. Once the Russians are defeated, you will be repatriated through Switzerland” (Vonnegut 208) Campbell is a sadistic human being who is trying to lure the americans into a trap. However the americans know they won't be free they would rather stay where they are and starve then serve the enemy. I admire the soldiers determination and resilience. The story is starting to hop around a lot more then usual but I think this is due to the effects of the plane crash which makes Billy more delusional than he already is. Billy still firmly believes in the tralfamadorians and it causes his daughter to believe that he is actually going insane. I've noticed that when Billy time travels it is usually due to a change in emotion which i find very interesting. He is basically running away from his problems through time. However as the book goes on Billy begins to face his problems in the present instead of time traveling away from them. Billy wife dies from carbon monoxide poisoning  and instead billy time travel to the past of the future he stays in that present moment and immerses himself in telling the world about tralfamadorians. I think the Tralfamadorians purpose was to make allow Billy to finally be himself and live life according to his terms and billy got see how those life choices turned out for him. This whole book is a bunch of collective moments throughout the time of Billy's life and even though Billy died his memories will always remain.

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SlaughterHouse

What I came to realize reading this book now was, how vivid and real Billy’s experiences in Dresden, Germany were. To me this is the only time I wasn’t confused with what was going on in the book. It was interesting because Billy would go into great deal about his experiences in World War 2, and make it seem very real, but the other places he traveled back in time to didn’t seem real and did not make me imagine what was going on. It is interesting that his war stories seem so real, and then there is this pattern of randomness that follows with random events. 

To me I think this is a symptom of PTSD and this is what is slowly eating a way at him. I do not know this first hand but I believe if someone has PTSD they will always remember everything that happened to them whether it be war, or a tragic event. In Billy’s case it is war, and I think what really gets his PTSD started is all the bodies he sees over the course of his time in Dresden. His memories are so real that he clearly remembers all the details of the events that effected him the most. However, when it comes to different aspects of his life, he misconstrues it and makes it up all his head, but now when he time travels to the present and so on, we may think his life is normal, but then something bizarre happens and we question his sanity yet again.  Billy I believe is on his death bed and slowly dying, and is trying to remember his life, but his brain is so messed up he can only remember the moments that landed him where he is now. 

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I know everyone is talking about their feelings toward "poo-tee-weet" and I agree with Percilia and Jared that it was a Nice way to end the book because the theme of so it goes occurred throughout the story with the Tralfs and their prospective of things, but one other thing I found interesting in the final chapter was the Tralfs talking about their admiration toward Darwin. A quote that stood out to me was "corpses are improvement" talking about survival of the fittest and evolution. What I didn't understand is why the Tralfs appreciated Darwinism so much, to me it seemed kind of out of character. They believe that everything just happened and that asking why was such a human thing. So if that's true then why do they care about someone who offers an explanation to why things are the way they are.

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I agree with Priscila about the use of “poo-tee-weet” and “so it goes” throughout the book. Now having finished it, I do think that “poo-tee-weet” was a nice way to end it. And also to address Priscila’s question about why we never really got a complete background on who Billy was and where he came from, I think the reason is because Billy was just another person existing in the world. I don’t think it mattered who he was. Like when Billy tried asking the Tralfamadorians about why they chose him, they just laughed and told him that was such a human thing to do. I think it’s the same concept.

On another note, what an intense scene that must have been for Billy and the others to come out of the meat locker and see such a massacre. It’s no wonder he has PTSD (debatably). After such a horrific event I could easily see him having PTSD. I think anyone would suffer some sort of psychological trauma from anything of the sort. I think Billy made up this idea of Tralfamadore in order to cope with all the death he saw. His subconscious is probably trying to make Billy feel better by showing him that nobody really dies, or at least nobody stops existing. This way Billy can view all those people who died as ok and still living, just not in this time.

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SHF ENDING

I think the ending was a little all over he place. It also reminded me of what Madison said about Billy being on his deathbed and reliving his memories and having flashbacks and such. I don't think the end really specifies if he actually did time travel? And what about those aliens were the even real and why were they so important to Billy? He literally had to tell everyone (the whole world)about Tralfamadorians WHY. I really enjoyed Kurts repetitiveness of "so it goes" and "poot-tee-weet" I think it was a a great way to end the book because it's kinda saying like what else is there more to say? It already happened. One thing that really was just like why to me.. was the fact that Billy was supposed to be he main character (I think) of the story, but we never got any solid background or characteristics of him. It's just kinda intriguing to me, why would the author do that??

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Who is Billy Pilgrim? He is a guy who is unstuck in time, and that is pretty much all we get to know about him and his characeter. Billy is someone who has many extrodinary and strange things happen to him, but yet reacts in a very nonchalant way. Unlike Connie or Dana, Billy is someone who just is at ease about situations, mostly because he holds wisdom most don’t have. He just docent hold future knowledge, but he holds a congruence that everything is going toe fine in his life. Whether he is caught with the transfalmadrians, or trying to survive a plane crash, Billy tries to find ease in whatever moment he is in. Why? Because Billy knows that the moments he exists in are everlasting and that whatever happened just is apart of an ongoing present. Therefore, Billies character isn’t about personality, but more of a statement on how people should live. Moments in this book are everything, they are everlasting and they are strange, and with Kurt Vonnegut’s style there is a charisma that shows you what happen’s in the future dosen’t matter, the only thing that matters is now. With the book ending mostly how it began, there is a sense that time and life is an ongoing cycle of lessons, moments, and unexpected situations; what matters most is how we deal with these things.

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S.H. V:Final Ramblings and Stuff

I don’t really know what to say about the book. All I remember was the poor old man with the bad farts, Valencia’s rather sad death, and the unorganized structure of the book(especially the ending).

The farting old man is nothing to talk about(though it was so out of place, it was pretty funny to me), but I find Valencia’s death rather depressing. Even if it is a “so it goes”, she died for the sake of being there for Billy. Although she caused her own death by rushing(running car without exhaust is a big no-no), she did so out of genuine care for Billy. Really sad to realize earlier in the book that Billy had no real regard for Valencia(though he did try to make her happy). In addition, I’m pretty sure Billy wasn’t able the get the news that his wife is dead in the beginning(although I’m certain he figured out somehow).

The overall ending to this book felt unfulfilling, which is what it was intended to be in the first place. The whole novel takes influence towards the mindset of the Tralfamadorians by having no structured series of events; it just goes all over the place. Similar to the alien’s perspective that there’s only “the moments”. The whole book are like Billy’s “greatest hits” of moments throughout his life, jumping from one to another. If we’re going to talk about Slaughterhouse Five as the anti-war novel that it’s supposed to be, the unorganized events that Billy partakes reflects upon the true meaning of war events. It doesn’t matter in what sequence these events take place, it all leads to the same futility and destruction, as mentioned with the “Poo-tee-weet?”

There was also a lot of little details that connect with one another( like Trout’s novel being awfully familiar with Billy’s stay at the Tralfamadorian zoo) which is interesting in itself. Maybe it has some meaning, but then again it’s the same book where death, war and reason is meaningless.

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Slaughter Done!

“Poo-tee-weet” is a creative way in which the author pretty much summarizes the massacre that took place. This shows the emptiness that the war leaves when its over. When a massacre takes place there are an incredible amount of deaths and fatal weapons used and the only ones that are able to say anything about the fight are the birds. In which the birds don't even have much do say because of how pointless the fighting was, there were so many deaths and for what? Something that people believed in? ultimately was it more important than ones life? That is what I think Vonnegut is trying to point out. In the beginning of the book he says that he is trying to write an anti-war book and with this quote “Poo-tee-weet” it just illustrates the worthlessness of war and massacres.

Something that I got from this book is that all actions that you make, past or present, will directly influence actions or events that happen in the future. Billy literally went through all of the moments of his life and he relived everything. He didn't change a thing and he knew what was to come when he did travel to a different time in his life. There was that possibility that if he did change anything when he was reliving a moment, he would change future events. I believe that everything just happens for a reason and I think that is very vivid here in this novel. It seems like everything that happens to Billy is just horrific such as Valencia dying on her way to the hospital and when he was a lone survivor in a plane crash but what is very motivational for me is that Billy found a way to cope with these horrific events and still live his life. Sure the whole tralfs thing sounds crazy but it was a way for him to put reason to why things happen which actually helped him with his PTSD

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S5 Ending

Vonnegut illuminates the tragic disbelief of human life into sharp relief in his description of Billy’s happiest moment. The day after the German surrender, Billy dozes blissfully in the sun amid Dresden’s ruins, but he is lying in a tomb on wheels. The coffin-shaped wagon points to a symbolic death suffered even by the survivors of war. It is the death of meaningful existence, the death of innocence for all the “babies” who carry out the newest massacre of war. Billy has not yet grasped the emptiness of victory. Yet when two Germans point out the miserable state of the horses hitched to Billy’s coffin, he cannot avoid the fact that his victory also contains his own defeat. The happiest moment in Billy’s life ends in tears for the plight of two stunned beasts carrying burden. The bird asks a question, “Poo-tee-weet?” to which there can be no reply. As the narrator warns in the first chapter, there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. The novel’s ending suggests that bird-talk makes as much sense as anybody discussing war. Yet, like the bird, Vonnegut has persisted in filling the silence left after the massacre. Even if words and stories are meaningless, the fact that they have managed to survive at all in the aftermath of a war that saw the mass incineration of books as well as of bodies is quite a feat. Moreover, Vonnegut has succeeded in creating a thing of beauty out of of senselessness and anguish.

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SORT OF CONFUSED STILL...IS THERE A SEQUEL?

This was one of the best books I’ve read in a really long time. This story is about all the events that Billy has experienced in his life. I don’t think that he is time travelling; I think that he has mental disorder. We will never know the truth about this issue, however, I wish I did. There were a few points in this part of the reading that really stood out to me. The first was on page 211, it is a conversation between Billy’s daughter and himself. She is saying that she wished she could kill Kilgore Trout. This stood out to me because I think the reason she wanted to kill Kilgore was because she thinks he planted the ideas of Tralfamadore and time travelling in Billy’s brain. On page 257, there is a quote that says, “The name of the book was The Big Board. He got a few paragraphs into it, and then he realized that he had read it before—years ago, in the veterans’ hospital. It was about an Earthling man and woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zircon-212.” This is very similar again to what Billy so-called “experienced” in Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack. I ask the question, “After reading through the entire novel, do we think Billy has some sort of mental disorder or do we really think he is time travelling?” My answer to the question is still sort of blurred as I think there is some evidence that he is time travelling and that he isn’t.

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In chapter 9 we see a moment of true happiness for Billy as he fell asleep next to the horses. I saw a little bit of irony in this scene as well. Although Billy was surrounded by a great amount of chaos and despair he was somehow able to find a feeling of peace and satisfaction. I think the author could be using this to display another example of the insignificance of war. I see it as an idea that we shouldn't focus on the negative consequences and outcomes of war because the whole event is pointless. Its ultimately for an unnecessary cause. Instead we should seek out any beautiful or satisfying moment we can in order to overcome the negative connotations of war. Maybe he is trying to prove that you successfully live through a massacre by the way or style in which you do so. Billy had this opportunity to escape the negativity war presented.

 “Poo-tee-weet” is a unique way in which the author sums up the massacre. I think this quote reflect the meaningless of the events that took place in Dresden. It ultimately shows that a birds opinions about his experience with the war would be equally as important as the humans. At the same time it could be showing us that there isn't anything to say about it all. The only important details of these events lies in the smaller satisfying experiences that Billy seeks to go through.

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