Vonnegut never really makes Billy's mental state explicitly obvious in the book. Near the beginning, Vonnegut writes in a way that subtly leans us toward Billy's assertions vs. Barbara's arguments claiming his insanity.
We get a scene of Billy peacefully writing his time-theory letter when Barbara comes home. After calling for Billy and not getting an answer, Barbara becomes "nearly hysterical, expecting to find [Billy's] corpse," a rather hasty conclusion, and also threatens to "put [Billy] where [his] mother is" (locked away in an old people's home) (28,29). All Billy does in the face of her hysterical ranting is calmly back his assertions; "his anger was not going to rise with hers. He never got mad at anything. He was wonderful that way" (30).
The stability around Billy's character, in contrast to Barbara's snappy and frantic extremes, pushes Billy viewpoint as legitimate when in actuality Barbara's worries are very legitimate and much more logical than Billy's absurdity.
On inspection, Vonnegut sets Billy's entire character up in a trustworthy manner. After the destruction in World War II, Billy seems to have an interestingly stable mental temperament--no signs of PTSD or trauma. But moreover, Billy is a successful and respected Optometrist in Ilium. He ran a steady business, was living very comfortably, had a wife and two children, had made it to be president of the elite Lions Club, etc. Vonnegut intends for us to believe Billy. In the beginning.
The first time any warning bells rang for me, however, occurred only when Vonnegut, in a very non-discreet fashion, brings in Billy's use of science fiction as an escape method. After this, Vonnegut starts a cascade of numerous hints that Billy's mental state is indeed dubious:
Billy commits himself to a mental institution, where "science fiction became the only tales he could read," and he used the books to "reinvent themselves and [his] universe" (101). Then Vonnegut mentions that one of Kilgore Trout's stories, The Gospel From Outer Space, features a character "shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way" (108). By the end of the novel, we see Billy venturing in a bookstore looking at Kilgore Trout books with details very similar to his experiences with Tralfamadore and Montana Wildhack films.
In the second half of the book, Vonnegut tears down Billy's credibility. Billy's distressing flashback with the barbershop quartet becomes a glaring sign of possible post-war trauma. By this point, Billy's general calm demeanor has also become creepily placid: the way he simple accepts the destruction of Dresden, his "happy moment" right after, the way he simply grins dumbly when a Dresden citizen fumes at his clownish appearance.
Billy starts to look rather inhumanly distant in emotional capacity. Especially with Vonnegut's convincing portrayal of "sane Billy" at the beginning, this new reveal becomes very conspicuous. It could be seen as an effective way to put a normal reader in the obscure viewpoint of a trauma-affected veteran of war.
Vonnegut could also be writing a warning regarding escapism. By turning to science-fiction and an inventive world, Billy distances himself from humanity (literally and metaphorically), and turns into a simple shell. Vonnegut, who is himself struggling to look back at the war, could be presenting Billy's situation as a soft warning to himself and other veterans not to suppress their memories--thus his reminders of "That was me. That was I." He was in the war, went through it "beside" Billy, but in contrast to Billy himself, Vonnegut is looking back at his memories, going back to Dresden, and writing a war novel. Whether as an expository viewpoint, warning, or coping method for Vonnegut, a PTSD/trauma reading of Slaughterhouse is legitimate.
Billy commits himself to a mental institution, where "science fiction became the only tales he could read," and he used the books to "reinvent themselves and [his] universe" (101). Then Vonnegut mentions that one of Kilgore Trout's stories, The Gospel From Outer Space, features a character "shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way" (108). By the end of the novel, we see Billy venturing in a bookstore looking at Kilgore Trout books with details very similar to his experiences with Tralfamadore and Montana Wildhack films.
In the second half of the book, Vonnegut tears down Billy's credibility. Billy's distressing flashback with the barbershop quartet becomes a glaring sign of possible post-war trauma. By this point, Billy's general calm demeanor has also become creepily placid: the way he simple accepts the destruction of Dresden, his "happy moment" right after, the way he simply grins dumbly when a Dresden citizen fumes at his clownish appearance.
Billy starts to look rather inhumanly distant in emotional capacity. Especially with Vonnegut's convincing portrayal of "sane Billy" at the beginning, this new reveal becomes very conspicuous. It could be seen as an effective way to put a normal reader in the obscure viewpoint of a trauma-affected veteran of war.
Vonnegut could also be writing a warning regarding escapism. By turning to science-fiction and an inventive world, Billy distances himself from humanity (literally and metaphorically), and turns into a simple shell. Vonnegut, who is himself struggling to look back at the war, could be presenting Billy's situation as a soft warning to himself and other veterans not to suppress their memories--thus his reminders of "That was me. That was I." He was in the war, went through it "beside" Billy, but in contrast to Billy himself, Vonnegut is looking back at his memories, going back to Dresden, and writing a war novel. Whether as an expository viewpoint, warning, or coping method for Vonnegut, a PTSD/trauma reading of Slaughterhouse is legitimate.
I agree that Slaughterhouse-Five can be seen as Vonnegut's attempt at coming to terms with his trauma from World War II. Especially since this isn't the first time that Vonnegut has tried to write about the Bombing of Dresden. In two of his earlier works he tries to write about war, destruction, etc... and I can only assume he wasn't too successful (since I actually haven't read them). And seeing Slaughterhouse-Five as statement to other veterans to not suppress their memories seems kind of a stretch for me. I didn't particularly hear a cry for help coming from the book, but seeing that I'm not a WWII veteran, actual veterans might have read Slaughterhouse-Five differently than I did.
ReplyDeleteWithout Vonnegut telling us that Billy is unstuck in time, it's fairly easy to see or at least infer that Billy is in some state of mental trauma. Surely he can't just go through this awful event where 27,000 people were killed and just live life. I really approve of your example in Chapter 8 of this, where Billy is considerably upset by a barbershop quartet's performance which brings back the memory of going through the Dresden bombing in the fifth slaughterhouse. Evidently there is some traumatic effect there. Overall a good piece.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean when you say that Billy's "credibility" is undermined in the later half of the book (just as, early on, all the time-travel and space-travel stuff is qualified with "Billy says"). And this makes sense, if we look at the question as a matter of ontology--the world Billy describes is not the "real" one, so therefore he's not mentally stable and lives under the influence of delusions about space aliens and being unstuck in time.
ReplyDeleteBut one of the most interesting and I think important ideas to come out of Kari, Keisha, and Elissa's presentation is that it doesn't necessarily matter whether the stuff Billy describes is "true" in a factual sense--can be confirmed by anyone else, with evidence, etc. The novel, in this reading, represents an accurate depiction of the dissociation of trauma, the inability to construct a linear/coherent personal narrative, etc. As a representation of a war-damaged psyche, in other words, all this seemingly crazy space stuff might be viewed as quite accurate.