“The soldiers’ blue eyes were filled with curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh.”
Billy, the protagonist, reminds me of Forest Gump. The completely wrong person trapped in war. For example when there is a shooting and Billy just stood there frozen, I pictured him just like Forest although at the end Forest is great at war. Both of them are very lucky because they did stupid things but still got out alive of war. Comparing Billy with his partner, Weary, was inevitable. Weary was Billy’s complete opposite. Weary was a man who seemed to be born for war, he probably didn’t know how to do anything else that did not involve war. Instead Billy was a man meant to do anything that did not involve war. When they describes all the “gadgets” Weary had, and all the weapons his father gave him Billy is in a huge disadvantage. Weary clearly disliked Billy, even the German soldier didn’t understand this, and it is all explained in the quote above, They should stick together, they are crossing the same situation they should help each other not try to kill one another…
I mean, probably the people who are least meant to go to war are the ones most likely to go, and that’s the thing about it. Billy was clearly affected by the war, but I personally think he blames it in the airplane accident he had. I am guessing he had post war trauma but he wasn’t capable of expressing it, but after the accident it all just came out involuntarily.
The way he talks about death saying, “So it goes” made me somewhat mad. I have experienced death in my family and, no matter how many years have passed, it still hurts, and I still wish it hadn’t happened. I am sure Billy feels this way too, please, he lost his father, he was sent to war where many of his colleagues were killed, how could it not mean anything to him. I think he uses this phrase probably to repress the pain or something.
The part that explained why Billy made everyone call him Billy made me crack up. It said it would make him magical because there were not many adults named Billy and because people would think about him, as a friend. This is totally true. Since I started to read about Billy it made me feel like on his side, like kind of sorry for him. Then the narrator explains this and it was so true it made me laugh.
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ReplyDeleteI like how you looked for an explanation as to why Billy believes he was abducted by aliens, instead of just attacking his ideas. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I agree with your theory: Maybe all of Billy's strange thoughts are part of a post-war trauma. While reading this second chapter, I was also a bit annoyed at first when the narrator simply said "So it goes" after talking about death. Maybe, as you said, he does this to stifle his emotions and hide his pain. I found it nice how you had a lot of voice in this blog entry and demonstrate how you feel, especially in the last paragraph. The fact that you're so open about your feelings, going from anger to laughter, makes the reader be able to easily relate to you.
ReplyDeleteI have never experienced the death of a very close familiar, so I am not in the position to judge if death is or is not painful for other people or rough, I don't know what it feels like. Nevertheless, what I sense about the way that Vonnegut uses "so it goes" is that somehow he is giving tribute to the dead ones. Each time he says it, for me, it is like saying, "they won't live in pain no more and they will be missed and remembered, the Tralfamadorians will take care of their after life happiness." That is why I think that Vonnegut says this frase. However, I did enjoyed very much your entry and how you related the famous Forest Gump with Billy Pilgrim, I would have never thought that. You said many things to reflect on, which I completely agree on. The way you analyze Billy amazes me, I look forward to reading your blog!
ReplyDeleteThe fact that both of us related to Forrest Gump seems quite a casuality, but the different reasons why we did are interesting. I can help but think about Forrest and the way luck got him through war alive, and now I also believe his nerve and will to live were influential, thus I disagree with you, because Billy commented nonstop about giving up and not wanting to live. Now I realize that Billy might have had more trouble adapting to his current condition (after the airplne crash) because he wasnt born like this, yet Forrest was, and "what you never had you won´t miss."
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