Reading Blog: Slaughter House - Five (Pg. 182-215)

(Mr. Tangen, I’m sorry to inform you that the article you requested us to talk about in this blog was unable to be open by my computer. It said that the page was temporarily unavailable).

Throughout the ending of this antiwar book, a finally realized the symbolic meaning of Billy’s squalid figure, and Valencia’s overwhelming shape and weight. In my opinion, Billy’s physical shape resembles the condition in which the world was in during the outbreak of World War II, and during its time being. The world powers, such as Britain, Russia, France and mostly Germany, got completely drained by the demands that the Second World War brought to each country. During the fighting of this war, every European country that participated in the war got to the pitiful state which Billy was constantly in. In the other hand, Valencia represents the war itself, which, although it could be handled by Billy, it was very big and unwanted, just like WWII. Billy’s plain crash then means the rather abrupt ending of the war (reason why Valencia died so quick). Finally, after Billy’s plain crash, his lament full sate was a metaphor of the condition in which the European powers and the world, was left after the ending of WWII. People, which is resembled by Rumfoord (Billy’s hospital roommate), thinks that humanity would never recover from such crisis; however through time they do, just like Billy’s case.
I also noticed as I ended this book, the Kilgore Trout was in fact Vonnegut’s character and thoughts reflected through Kilgore Trout. Well, they seem to have “identical” characteristics. Just like Vonnegut, Trout isn’t a very successful author; however, in the end, Trout’s books are displayed in a bookstore’s frontal window. This book, is about a couple of Earthling’s kidnapped by some aliens, and then displayed in a zoo, event which is very similar to what happened with Billy and Montana Wildhack in Tralfamadore. “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.” (Vonnegut 201).
Finally, I really liked the ending of this book, since it gives it a Tralfamadorian touch. It leaves the reader thinking in a Tralfamdorian way, which is, that there is no specific chronology between events. This book keeps you seeing this story as I imagine a Tralfamadorian seeing it, with no specific fourth dimension.