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The chosen essay on faith
The chosen essay on faith
The chosen essay on faith
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Helen Keller once shared, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved." In the book, The Chosen by Chaim Potok, Billy endured agonizing trials and circumstances as a young child. A tragic accident resulted in not only the loss of Billy's vision, but also the death of his mother. While many would be annihilated by such pain, Billy demonstrates joy. Bitterness and a sullen attitude do not characterize him, but rather, Billy shows the traits of optimism, patriotism, and graciousness Though Billy sees only darkness, his spirit exudes the brightest of lights. While many in his situation could exhibit a sullen or egocentric attitude, Billy continually illustrates an optimistic and hopeful demeanor. Certain of his eventual recovery, he converses casually, "It'll be wonderful to be able to see again."() Not only for himself, but he also waits expectantly for the recoveries of other patients, such as Mr. Savo. Billy tells him how much fun it will be when they can do a three-rounder. Billy's kind-hearted and optimistic nature proves encourages and endears him to others. …show more content…
Billy repeatedly shares about his uncle who serves as a fighter pilot. During D-Day, his joy can hardly be contained. When Mr. Galanter comes to visit Reuven, Billy asks him why he is not serving in the war. He obviously holds a high respect for those who sacrifice to protect their country. He explains why his own father could not serve, saying, "...because my mother was killed in the accident and there's no one else to take care of me and my little sister."() Billy's pride in the nation exemplifies a trait that proves great heart and true appreciation for the
Now Billy's life has been quite stressful, losing his father at such a young age and in the middle of a war. Then after this father's death Billy actually had to go off to war. And his wife, I mean she was no Marilyn Monroe and it wasn't like he was in love with her. Billy only marri...
Billy Pilgrim time travels to various moments in his life at random, which suggests he has no power over his mind and the memories that haunt him. He “is spastic in time, (and) has no control over where he is going next” (Vonnegut 43), as he struggles to make sense of his past. Billy’s ability to remember events in an erratic sequence, mirrors the happenings of war. War is sudden, fast paced, and filled with unexpected twists and turns. Billy cannot forget what he experienced during his time as a soldier, and in turn his mind subconsciously imitates this hectic quality of war. This behavior proves that although the war is over, “psychologically, Billy has never fully left” (Vees-Gulani). For many soldiers, especially those who were prisoners of war (POW), it is inevitable that their mind will not be like it once was (Vees-Gulani).
When Vonnegut created Billy Pilgrim, he made Billy subject to the experience of the war. In fact, Billy experiences it almost. exactly the same as Vonnegut himself had, including the experiences of being a POW and in the firebombing of Dresden. The. But in Billy's case, Vonnegut writes it with.
Billy constantly feels bad about the choices he makes. While Billy is in the ward, he is surrounded by many strong women who are all in charge. The main nurse, Nurse Ratched, is constantly watching over him due to her relationship with his mother, who doesn’t want him to grow up. With these expectations from his mother and Nurse Ratched, Billy conforms into a thirty year old man who is afraid to think for himself. Billy is still a virgin when he enters the ward, due to his mother not letting him think for himself. This causes Billy to constantly feel guilty and unhappy when he makes choices for himself, because those around him made him believe that he does not deserve to make his own choices. When Billy finally did something for himself
The main event that leads Billy to all his confusion is the time he spent in Dresden and witnessed the fire-bombings that constantly pop in his head along with pictures of all the innocent people Billy saw that fled to Dresden the "safe spot" from the war before the bombing. When Billy sees the faces of the innocent children it represents his fear of the situation. Billy can't acknowledge the fact that they were innocent and they were killed by Americans, Americans soldiers just like himself. The biggest issue Billy cannot come to grasp with is why the bombings took place. That question has no answer; it's just something that happened that Billy couldn't get over. During all Billy's travels back to Dresden he couldn't change what had really happened there although that was the closure he was looking for. Dresden purely represents Bill's past and fears of the truth about what happened.
Billy Pilgrim is born in 1922 and grows up in Ilium, New York. A funny-looking, weak youth, he does well in high school, then he enrolls in night classes at the Ilium School of Optometry, and is soon drafted into the army. He serves as a chaplain's assistant, is sent into the Battle of the Bulge, and almost gets taken prisoner by the Germans. Just before being captured he first becomes unstuck in time. He sees the entirety of his life in one sweep. Billy is transported with other privates to the beautiful city of Dresden. There the prisoners are made to work for their keep. They are kept in a former slaughterhouse. Billy and his fellow POWs survive in an airtight meat locker. They emerge to find a moonscape of destruction. Several days’ later Russian forces capture the city and the war is over. Billy returns to Ilium and finishes optometry school. He gets engaged to the daughter of the founder of the school. His wealthy father-in-law sets him up in the optometry business. Billy and his wife raise two children and become wealthy.
Like most suffers of PTSD, Billy struggles with certain experiences. Yet his turmoil manifest itself as time travel, and Billy’s time travel through those experiences is a symbol for his inability to cope. Billy has his first experience with time travel while he is being shot at. Up until this point of the novel the time line had been linear so in order to cope Billy imagines the first time he was ever truly terrified, but instead of recognizing it as just a memory Billy attributes it to time travel (Vonnegut 43). He is never described as being mentally unsound prior to being in the war, yet coming out of it he begins to time travel frequently and is admitted into a mental institution. The war transformed a simple man from Ilium, New York into a passive participant of his life. His life after his initial encounter with time travel is devoid of any real stability, and while the novel focuses on him, a sense of instability and a lack of certainty is a wide spread sentiment to anyone who encounters a war. The war doesn’t simply disappear after a treaty is sign...
One of the strongest points proving Billy’s lack of emotion is when he is at war and essentially tries to set himself up for his enemy to shoot him (Vonnegut 29). The incident seems very ironic considering Vonnegut’s anti-war opinions, because he seems to want Billy to honor the fairness of war.
Billy is the main Character I already talked about him in last paragraph, so you can just look there for more info on him.
Amazingly, he survives and when he emerges he finds a field of destruction, just days later Russian forces capture the city and he is transported from Germany back to the U.S. Later After having a nervous breakdown, Billy dedicates himself to a veterans’ hospital. While staying in the mental ward, another patient introduces Billy to the science fiction novels of a writer named Kilgore Trout -which is important and I'll explain later-.
his companion. Over their time together they fall in love and have a child before Billy is sent
Billy Budd plays a role of a good-hearted and simple peacemaker. His winsome looks and innocent nature wins the loyalty of many sailors except for John Claggart. During Billy’s brief moment of his stay in Captain Vere’s cabin, one can see that his angelic image morphs into an image of a deadly creature. When John Claggart shocks Billy with the accusation of being involved in a rebellious group, Billy becomes “impaled, struck by white leprosy.” He is dumbfounded and tongue-tied as if the hypnosis- ***Hypnotist?***Claggart – had actually mesmerized him into blocking his ability to speak. Captain Vere even urges Billy to defend himself; however, one knows for a fact that Billy’s main weakness is his inability to speak out in such situation. Melville also compares Billy to an old schoolmate of Captain Vere. Just like the young schoolmate, Billy shrinks into a helpless child, struggling to spit out a word. That moment of helplessness is broken when Billy slashes out with a cannonball punch at Claggart. Instantaneously, Billy’s image of a good-natured sailor is replaced by the image of a manslayer. It is that unexpected transformation in Billy’s nature which puts his life on trial.
Since Billy knows the plane is going to crash, you would think that he would warn the passengers, yet he does not do anything to stop it. He doesn 't even get off the airplane or tell his father-in-law to get off.. He allows the events to take place as though nothing was going to happen.
Though he was able to escape war unharmed, Billy seems to be mentally unstable. In fact, his nightmares in the German boxcar at the prisoners of war (POW) camp indicate that he is experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the car. Nearly everybody, seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep. Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away” (79). Billy’s PTSD is also previously hinted when he panics at the sound of sirens: “A siren went off, scared the hell out of him. He was expecting World War III at any time. The siren was simply announcing high noon” (57). The most prominent symptom of PTSD, however, is reliving disturbing past experiences which is done to an even more extreme extent with Billy as Slaughterhouse-Five’s chronology itself correlates with this symptom. Billy’s “abduction” and conformity to Tralfamadorian beliefs seem to be his method of managing his insecurity and PTSD. He uses the Tralfamadorian motto “so it goes” as a coping mechanism each time he relives a tragic event. As Billy struggles with the conflict of PTSD, the work’s chronological order is altered, he starts to believe
...able to help others to understand time, how he and the Tralfamordians see it. So that people can stop dwelling over wars and catastrophes and all of the world’s woes. He even tells people about his own death and how he will die; by being assassinated by Paul Lazzaro during a speech in Chicago. And again Billy does nothing to try and stop it, there is no need. Because he knows that this is how it goes, and after being dead for a while, he will just jump to another moment in his life.