Reading Blog: Slaughter House - Five (Pg. 72 - 96)

Again, I was reading through the novel and another situation about how Billy Pilgrim was uncapable of changing the future and the present came up. Well, why in the world will a person who is completely aware that a flying saucer is coming to get him, waits for the saucer and then goes near it? Although Billy migh have seen through his time traveling expiriences that the saucer was not harmful at all, it is just not human to accept the fact that he is going to be kidnapped by a UFO without making any resistance what so ever. Billy even waits for the suacer to come and get him, this is just crazy, I would be all paranoic and scared at the fact that I may never see the world and my family again! " Billy now shuffled down his upstairs hallway, knowing he was about to be kidnapped by a flying saucer." (Vonnegut 72). "He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television." (Vonnegut 73). What the heck?! I just can't believe a person would do that. This event also reflects Billy' incapability of changing his premeditated destiny, as I have said in previous blogs, and will probably keep stating out.

Then, I kept on reading, and found, at last, the answer to my question: why can't Billy change his destiny if he can travel through it? The answer to this question was given to me by the Tralfamadorians, they stated that each moment is just there for no particular reason, their exactr answer was this: "Well,here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." (Vonnegut 77). With this little statement I finally proved what I had said in the past blogs about being useless traveling through time if you can't change the events you don't like, as explicitly said by the Tralfamadorian, "... trapped in the amber of this moment." (Vonnegut 77).

Free Will, I encountered this two historical words as I kept on reading, or I may say, the two words for which the United States of America has waged wars to defend. I was stunned when I read that from 31 inhabitaed planets in the universe the Earth is the only one who speeks of 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 thare any talk of free will." (Vonnegut 86). WOW! either we are blessed, or we have a misconception of free will since we can't see in 4-D. Either we have the false idea that we can choose our actions to have certain reprecussions in the future, while the truth is that everything is just meant to be the way we choose. Well, I, due to the fact that I'm a human being that can only see in 3-D, believe I can choose (free will) any decision of my life knowing the consequences it will probably bring. Maybe, since the aliens are more advanced than us, meaning that they can see in 4-D, they understand that everything is presettled, concept we humans can't grasp right now; however, there may be also the fact that we are more advanced than the aliens, cause for why we do have free will, since in page 76, when Billy is kidnapped, the author mentions that the Tralfamadorians take Billy's free will, meaning that, we may indeed have developed something the aliens haven't which is the liberty to choose. "Billy's will was paralyzed by a zap gun aimed at him from one of the portholes." (Vonnegut 76). Another reason why the Earthlings have free will, while the Tralfamadorians don't is because the only way to make a perfect world is by limiting people's, or in this case aliens', liberty of choice.

"Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away. So Billy Pilgrim had to sleep standing up, or not sleep at all. And food stopped coming in through the ventilators, and the days and nights were colder all the time." (Vonnegut 79). As soon as I read this I asked myself what happened to the Human Beings that were last time sharing and caring for each other? They became once again selfish, savage beast we are daily.