Billy Pilgrim Chapter 2 Summary

Kurt Vonnegut begins the book with writing about his own experience with the war in Dresden. He goes on to tell about how he wanted to write about his experience for a while and how it took him twenty-three years to actually accomplish it. Vonnegut soon writes about another story in Chapter two and this is the story the rest of the book follows. The reader soon finds out about the character Billy Pilgrim and everything about his life. “He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between” (Vonnegut, 26). Vonnegut uses time-shifting throughout the novel to try and make the reader understand Billy Pilgrims traumatic experiences throughout his life. These different experiences made Billy Pilgrims

life unlike anyone else’s.
Vonnegut begins chapter two with giving Billy Pilgrims entire background of his life.

He tells the reader almost his entire life. He begins to tell how Billy Pilgrim was born in Ilium, New York in 1922. Also, tells the reader how he graduated from high school and went to Optometry school for only one semester, then after a semester he was drafted. Once Billy Pilgrim was drafted his father had an accident while hunting which caused his death. While he was at war he was captured by the Germans, but after the war he began back going to school at the school of optometry. He got engaged his senior year. Had a “nervous collapse” and had to go to the hospital for veterans. Vonnegut continues to tell the reader how Billy became very rich and had two children. Which both followed in their father’s footsteps. His daughter became on optometrist and his son fought in the Vietnam war. In early 1968 Billy was in a plane crash and while he was in the hospital recovering his wife died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy Pilgrim experienced a lot of life changing events and it will just continue throughout the

book.
Billy meets a character named Roland Weary. Roland Weary saved Billy when the both of them were in Luxembourg. Roland Weary seemed to be the most ideal soldier. He seemed to be really good and nice towards Billy, but he was doing it more for himself to make himself feel better. Roland Weary believes if the “three musketeers” save Billy they will get honored with medals and that is the only reason he wanted to help Billy. Soon Roland Weary realizes that he had chosen the wrong people to be in a group with, and part of his “three musketeers” left him and Billy. Roland Weary blamed Billy for that and pointed a gun at Billy when they were about to be captured by the Germans. Roland Weary later dies and while dying he was cursing Billy’s names and blamed him for everything.
Billy cannot sleep that well anymore he has to have various forms of sleep aids.

The time shifting makes him tired. Time shifting also always makes him wonder what is going to happen next. On the other hand, he sometimes knows what is about to happen so it keeps him waiting for it. Billy was captured by the Tralfamadorians on the same day as his daughter, Barbara’s, wedding. Billy describes the Tralfamadorians and said they looked like two-foot-high aliens that resembled upside down toilet plungers. Billy also described his time with the Tralfamadorians and how he was taken to a zoo and made to mate with a movie actress. Throughout the book Vonnegut continues to tell Billy’s experience in short paragraphs that jump from one-time frame to

another.
Vonnegut makes it clear that Billy was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). So, is the reason he is jumping from time to time because he is suffering from this mental illness? Billy has seen death over and over and has been exposed to people losing their lives not only at war but also outside of the war. Is the reason Billy is seeing the Tralfamadorians because he is comparing them to the German soldiers that he and other soldiers were captured by? As a reader the bombing made a very large impact on Billy and the only way for him to make sense of everything was for him to make up a story on what happened in his life.
Overall, Vonnegut writes a story about Billy’s life and does it in a way to make the reader stay on track with everything happening. It is written in different short stories from one-time frame to another time frame. “Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963” (Vonnegut, 29). The reader knows about Billy Pilgrims life events but not in the order they happened. It makes a reader wondering why and possibly confuses the reader. On the other hand, the reader can be anxious and anticipating what is happening next. Kurt Vonnegut tells the reader about Billy’s life at the very beginning of the book—nearly his entire life story. Throughout the book he begins to add more detail as to why or what happened only giving a little detail here and there. By the end of the book he sums everything up and explains everything.