Essay Comparing The Wars And Slaughterhouse-Five

In both fiction and reality, people and characters are subjected to external factors that affect how they think, act, and behave. As such they often have personas unbeknownst to others through mere observation. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Wars by Timothy Findley both utilize characters that display inconsistent personalities in public contrasted to how they act in private. Especially in wartime, humans are pushed to their limit and more than often emerged disfigured physically and mentally. Through observing the public and private lives demonstrated by the characters of The Wars and Slaughterhouse-Five, all that they held private is lost or publicized through war, ultimately resulting in their loss of purpose or identity.

This is evident through the war's impact on the public and private actions of Robert Ross, Billy Pilgrim, and other supportive minor characters.

Throughout the historical fiction representation of both novels, the characters exposed to war the most exceedingly are those who lose their private identity. Robert Ross, protagonist of The Wars, is catalyzed into enlisting for the Great War by the death of someone he held dear: his sister Rowena. This decision however, is heavily conflicted in Robert`s private thoughts: “Maybe some decision of its own depended on which way Robert went. Then Robert closed his eyes and made his choice. He stepped down into the puddle and stood there.” (Findley 16). Ultimately, his attribution to enlist is credited to Rowena: “How could he move? Rowena had been buried the day before.” (16). His guilt as her inept guardian forced his decision: “It was Robert’s fault. Robert was her guardian and he was locked in his bedroom. Making love to his pillows.” (16), and he chose to join the war to seek solace and atonement for his failure. Initially, Robert is successful in maintaining a connection with his personal reason to join the war. He acquaints with Rodwell over his collection of wounded animals, which reminds Robert of his sister: “Robert looked. There was a whole row of cages. Rowena.” (85). By replacing his bond with the person carrying an animal affinity with Rodwell instead of Rowena, he manages to maintain a grasp on his private reason to enlist. This, however, did not to last. When Rodwell commits suicide after leaving Robert’s men, Robert finds himself in a familiar situation. He is left to tend to the animals forsaken by the deceased. For Robert, joining the war forces him to relive his most agonizing experience over again. The War where Robert enlists in uncooperatively and relentlessly rips him apart, betraying his private reason to find atonement by bombarding him with death and violence.

Robert has difficulty comprehending the war because he is not born of violent nature. Before his wartime experience, he has difficulty with and avoids any type of killing. In an attempt to remedy this, he turns toward Eugene Taffler as his mentor. Robert’s respect for Taffler originated from his prejudgment, as he believed himself to have traits similar to Taffler: “He had also been a Varsity all-round athlete, though this was before Robert’s time and therefore Taffler’s face was not familiar to him. His name, however, was credential enough.” (29). All of that, however, vanishes when Robert visits the brothel with his fellow soldiers. After Taffler assumes the public identity as a successful soldier, the war then forcibly tailors it to his private life. Ella, the prostitute that he meets, invades not only Robert’s privacy, but Taffler’s as well, and forces him to witness Taffler’s homosexuality: “..he couldn’t step aside, even if he wanted to.” (39). Due to the war, Taffler is forced to suppress his homosexuality because of widespread social un-acceptance as evidenced by Robert’s attempt of “desperately trying to comprehend” (39) the scene. In Allan Weiss’ essay, he described the world before war as “one in which there is a clear and proper distinction between the public and private”. (91). Yet, before Robert even left the country for war, the idea of “proper distinction between the public and private” evaporates, as Robert publically witnesses the private life of another. The war presented Robert with a decoy very much like himself, who is impacted by the war, and struggles to keep private emotions hidden. In this sense, Taffler is foiled by war which publicized his homosexuality to Robert.

The line between his public and private life become almost indistinguishable, the further Robert delves into war. His character further relinquishes its unique characteristics, and uncannily begins to resemble Taffler’s. It becomes progressively more difficult for Robert to maintain his privacy, and he resorts to violent means, contradictory to his character before the war. “Robert, I discovered was a very private man. His temper, you know, was terrible.” (Findley 156), from Juliet’s transcript represents Robert’s descent. Before going off to war Robert easily identified as nonviolent, not even understanding the ‘why’ or ‘how’ to kill Rowena’s rabbits, thinking the idea “can’t possibly make any sense” (18). Robert’s visit at St. Aubyn’s, however, shed a different light. In a desperate attempt to maintain his privacy, he adopts violent methods: “[Juliet] saw him firing his gun at a young tree.. He destroyed it absolutely. Other times he would throw things down and break them on the ground.” (156). In this sense, Robert resembles Taffler’s attempt to hide his private life, where he resorts to breaking bottles to hide his repulsion of how war is just “one little David against another” (30). The war caused Robert to stray away from his well-natured personality, instead inducing him to embody violence. Strengthening this further, the rape of Robert Ross pushes him past the limit. The rape not only mentally, but physically ravaged Robert’s privacy. With body and soul both infringed upon, Robert loses himself almost entirely for a moment, and all he could focus on channelling out his rage by destroying his hotel room: “He pulled out the drawers of the dresser one by one. He dumped them on the floor. He lifted the mattress and pulled it sideways across the bed.. He tipped the water jug.. He threw the jug in the corner. It broke into sixteen pieces.” (176). In addition, Robert desperately “wanted his pistol” (175) to the point where it takes over his mind, when all he thought of is his “Gun. Gun. He wanted his gun.” (176). In the midst of this insanity, Robert fully abandon’s his reason that brought him into this war as he took the picture of Rowena and “burned it in the middle of the floor.” (178). The Robert debauched by war abandons the reason why he enlisted, loses his original identity, and has his privacy invaded both mentally and physically.

On the surface, protagonist Billy Pilgrim of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, may seem to have very little in common with Robert Ross.

A direct comparison of the two may lead one to find Billy Pilgrim to be a pushover compared to Robert Ross. That is due, however, to a unique interpretation of time and dimension itself by Pilgrim. Unlike Robert, Pilgrim never had a private reason on why he went to war, and in fact only attends because he is drafted. Up until that point, he lived a perfectly normal life as a student studying optometry. Yet World War II drafted Pilgrim amidst the enemy lines and removed him from his life as a student. His life after that is never the same because it is on the battlefield that “Billy says that he first came unstuck in time.” (Vonnegut 15). Pilgrim, a soldier that is never suppose to become a soldier, is plagued by the war with a condition which causes him to jump uncontrollably to random points in his life without warning. At its worst, Pilgrim rapidly jumps to four different events of his life in rapid succession, out of his control. From war, where “The naked Americans took their places under many showerheads along a white-tiled wall.” (38), to being a baby where “Billy gurgled and cooed.” (38), to “playing hacker's golf this time on a blazing summer Sunday morning” (38), to “strapped to a yellow contour chair in a white chamber aboard a flying saucer, which was bound for Tralfamadore.” (38). Every attempt that Pilgrim tries at maintaining a regular life is eventually met with a timehop, back to the days where he suffered in the war leaving him in a “constant state of stage fright” (12). The war denies Pilgrim the ability to live his private life in peace, even after the

war.

Relating to Pilgrim’s time hopping disease, is his capture by the Tralfamadorians. With similarities to Robert Ross’ rape, the Tralfamadorians violate every aspect of Pilgrim’s privacy. On the physical level, Pilgrim is stripped naked, observed keenly by thousands of Tralfamadorians, and coaxed to mate. Despite all of this, Pilgrim does not seem deterred, and when he arrives back he decides publicize everything that he learned. Publicizing his information, however, causes him no benefit because humans cannot grasp the fourth dimension like he or the Tralfamadorians do. On the contrary, it causes Pilgrim to be ridiculed by his own daughter. Not stopping there, Pilgrim further mutilates his private life as a successful optometrist by “devoting himself to a calling much higher than [his] mere business.” (17), and sacking his store to further prove the existence of Tralfamadore. As a byproduct from his war-inflicted ability to become unstuck in time, Pilgrim’s private life has been seized from him by his addiction to prove Tralfamadore. His public relations are also crippled, including his relationship with his daughter, when no earthling can grasp his message. The knowledge he learned from the Tralfamadorians brought forth more damage than good. Not only does his get physical privacy invaded, they manifest on Pilgrim’s thoughts and beliefs as well. Having been taught a Tralfamadorian’s view on time as non-linear, the end of the universe with Earth having “nothing to do with it” (52), and their denial of free will, Billy’s private life on Earth has been dramatically taken over by Tralfamadorian concepts and ideas. He adopts these ideas as his own, with the knowledge of “Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones” (52), Billy is able to see even after his supposed death. As the only earthling to be able to do this, he becomes an observer, and in essence, his interaction with Tralfamadorians stole away his privacy, forever. Discarding his prewar identity in the field of optometry, he obsesses with alien concepts and science fiction.

War not only affects those who experienced it first hand, but those who seemingly had no involvement in it as well. Kilgore Trout’s character in Slaughterhouse-Five differs from Pilgrim’s, Robert’s, and Taffler’s in that Trout never went to war. Billy, who has a significant impact on Trout’s career as an author, only received exposure to the author because of war. Although never explicitly stated, Vonnegut heavily suggests Billy’s hospitalization into the mental ward where Trout is first introduced to him is due to the war; utilizing “Poo-tee-weet?”(45) as the war reference. Trouts affinity with Pilgrim can be viewed as similar with Taffler’s affinity with Robert. Trout’s authorial ideas were subpar, thus his “unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only his ideas were good.” (49). Similarly to Robert initially turning to Taffler for mentorship only to realize Taffler’s public life is a mere cover up, Pilgrim’s devotion to Trout’s novels is highly contrary to Trout’s public opinion. Even Trout himself is in total acceptance, “He himself has no idea how many novels he has written-possibly seventy-five of the things. Not one of them has made money” (73), not putting in the effort to care about his works any longer. In contrary, Trout fully accepts his other persona and he “keeps body and soul together as a circulation man for the Ilium Gazette” (73). He finds his happy medium while still picking a job relevant to writing, even being “obviously very good at his job” (73). As a secondary outcome to war, Trout gains Pilgrim as a fan. His private life is jeopardized when Pilgrim brings Trout a renewed vigour to promote his novels. Despite Trout’s enthusiasm, the fact that his novels were poorly written remain unchanged. Pilgrim publicizes a portion of Trout’s privacy that he abandoned, in a similar fashion to Robert invasion of Taffler’s privacy.

Both of the World Wars that occurred in the 20th century were devastating, especially for the individual soldiers that suffered through it, and those in the presence of these soldiers. Oftentimes, they emerge from the war completely changed and disfigured. The war mutilates the characters of The Wars and Slaughterhouse-Five by slicing apart their privacy, forcing upon them a public identity they never asked for, ultimately resulting in their loss of purpose of identity. The historical fiction novels accurately portray the breakdown of the world through the breakdown of each individual persona involved with war.