Arters AP Literature 2016-17 discussion

What is the purpose of life? Does the world follow some predetermined script or does free will exist? In addition to showing the horrors and unpredictable terror of war, Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse-Five, makes its readers, including myself, ask these questions which philosophers have struggled to answer throughout all of history. The novel is primarily centered around its main character, Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim is a WWI veteran and survivor of the Dresden Firebombing, a successful optometrist, and a father. Despite achieving what many would consider success after the war by starting a family and having a respectable career, Billy’s life is riddled with random tragedies such as a plane crash in which he is the only survivor and a car accident which kills his wife while she is driving to the hospital to visit Billy. Despite, or perhaps to cope with, the tragedies and death Billy experiences in war and in his personal life, Billy often repeats the phrase “so it goes” throughout the novel. After his plane crash and the death of his wife, Billy reports of an encounter with aliens who enlighten him that time is a concept that humans have gotten wrong. According to Billy, the aliens explain that each point in time simply is and that the order of these events is of little consequence as each event has already been predetermined. There is quite a bit of evidence in the novel to suggest that these aliens are imagined, but what Billy takes away from them about the nature of time is critical to the novel and allows Billy to justify the seemingly random tragedies around him and his lack of control over them.
This acceptance of tragedy and lack of emotion or caring from Billy troubled me as I read the novel because I could not easily explain to myself why he should concern himself with what he has no control over. Through what he reports as encounter with aliens, it is clear that Billy is intended to seem detached from reality, yet he asks a question that cannot be written off as easily as his character is in the story. How much of what happens in life can we really control? In Billy’s mind and perhaps even in Vonnegut’s the answer is bleak. The events in the novel are told in random chronological order as Billy flashes back and jumps to different parts of his life including his death. Billy makes no effort to change the events that he repeatedly relives and the randomness of their order does not matter to him as he believes each moment in time is impossible to be altered. Personally, I cannot say I fully agree with Billy Pilgrim in that life is a meaningless string of predetermined events because I believe that free will exists and that the choices we make in life influence the various possible outcomes. However, it must be acknowledged that there is a high degree of randomness in life and much of what happens is out of our control. The world we are born into, the genetics we are given, and the unexpected twists and turns of life affect different people in different but equally random and unalterable ways.
Of these twists and turns, the ones Slaughterhouse-Five is most focused on are the horrors of war. In the opening chapter, Vonnegut addresses the fact that many war stories fail to address the negative impact and seemingly random loss of life that comes along with war and that Slaughterhouse-Five is his anti war novel, a story that needs to be told but will likely have no effect on future wars to come. Much like the life of Billy Pilgrim, war is something that Vonnegut knows from his own experiences as something that cannot be controlled, prevented, predicted, or even fully prepared for. Vonnegut himself served in WWII where he, like Billy, survived the of the firebombing in Dresden as a POW. Overall, Vonnegut makes a compelling argument based on his experiences and imagination that suggest that much of life in uncontrollable and that there is often little to be done about it. It is a bit depressing, but I believe this is a valid point and that acceptance of what cannot be controlled is an important part of moving on in life.
Although the book made me think and reconsider many of my preconceived notions about fate, free will, and the randomness of life, my personal verdict on the book remains mixed. Despite bringing about a strong philosophical argument from a unique viewpoint, the story was told in a confusing manner that was not always enjoyable to read in my opinion. I did not find myself eager to continue turning the pages as I read the book, but when I put it down I did continue thinking about its messages. Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is not a thrilling page turner, but if you are looking for a book that will make you rethink life and the randomness in our world, look no further.