Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five has an inscribed plaque saying “[that] God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” on the wall above his desk in his optometry office. Free will is the ability to act in a variety of ways on a situation in order to achieve the desired outcome of the individual. However, free will is not always present in day to day lives, resulting in individuals being forced to accept a predetermined fate as a result of their free will, and when to acknowledge to accept their fate as a result of their lack of free will. Characters of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five support this quote by accepting the inevitable …show more content…
Willy Loman for example, in Death of a Salesman demonstrates the inability to differentiate between what he has free will over and vice-versa. Throughout Death of a Salesman, Willy attempts to ensure both himself and his family a good job, at the cost of his life and his mental sanity. Unfortunately for Willy, this does not play out well, and instead of ensuring a stable economy for both himself and his family, Willy commits suicide, leaving doubt whether insurance money will be given to his family to create a new business. Willy, as the quote mentions, fails to accept the things he cannot change. As opposed to accepting aspects of his life Willy can't change, Willy attempts to change them. For example, at the end of the novel, when Biff yells at Willy that he's a failure and will never become a successful businessman, and orders Willy to accept this inevitable fate. However as opposed to following Biff's request, Willy perceives this as Biff attempting to fulfill Willy's dream, and instead commits suicide, hoping the …show more content…
Instead of living his life in chronological order, Billy relives random events of his life an endless number of times. However, each time an event is relived, the same outcome of the event occurs. Billy experiences the deaths of numerous friends, enemies, and neutral characters of his life. Each time a character dies, the saying "So it goes" follows. "So it goes" is a significant quote in the story, that reflects Billy's perception of death. Instead of treating death as a shocking and avoidable death, Billy recognizes through the teaching of Tralfamadorians that death itself is only a mere moment in a person's life, and instead of reflecting upon death itself, Billy should rather embrace the positive aspects of a person's life. For example, Billy dies at the hands of an assassin at a very old age, sent by Lazzaro,a misinformed thief who believes Billy was the cause of his friend's death during World War II at a young age. As Billy relives events through his life, including the Firebombing of Dresden, Billy does not fear for his life, knowing his death will only be as a result of Lazzaro. Furthermore, Billy is repeatedly abducted by the Tralfamadorians the evening after his daughter's wedding. Instead of seeking escape from the Tralfamadorians, Billy openly accepts his abduction. Billy recognizes that whatever events in his life that
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five suggests that a man cannot change his fate. Any attempts to change the past or the future are meaningless. Therefore, there is nothing to search for, and the search for meaning is futile.
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
“Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Dictionary.com). The novel Slaughterhouse five portrays the idea of not having free will. The award winning author, Kurt Vonnegut, tells
A Look into the Human Mind In his powerful novel, Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut tells of a man named Billy Pilgrim who has become unstuck in time. He walks through a door in 1955 and comes out another in 1941. He crashes into a plane in 1968 and ends up displayed in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore, making love to Earth porno-star, Montana Wildhack. He ends up in the cellar of a slaughterhouse when Dresden is bombed to ashes during World War II; Billy, his fellow Americans, and four guards were the only ones to live through the bombing. The Boston Globe best explains the book when it says it is “.poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement” (back cover).
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut was an anti-war book about the bombing of Dresden. The main theme of the book seemed to be fate, or that nobody has free will. Throughout the book, Billy, is randomly traveling in time. Whenever he has the opportunity to make a choice that would seem like the right, or intelligent thing to do, he does not, as he does not have the free will to make that choice. This also leads to Billy not caring about many things, knowing they will happen no matter what anybody does.
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.
Fate is “something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot,” while free will is “the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses person choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.” Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy’s experiences in Slaughterhouse-Five to display the idea that free will is all but an illusion; all decisions in life are made by influences, whether from within or from
Willy Loman’s obsession with success blurs out the true picture around him. Both of his sons will never be able to achieve he lays out for them. As a result, he has an inner denial with the reality that his sons will not amount to success. Willy Loman prevents both, his sons and himself to progress due to his chains towards success. In addition, the quote “Man is born free, and everywhere he is on chains.”- Jean- Jacques Rousseau describes Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Willy Loman is born a free man until he starts to become chained to the idea of success. Ben Loman, his brother, represents the idea of success as he struck luck in Alaska and created a fortune. That as a result causes Willy Loman to work relentlessly to achieve he same level of fortune. That starts the downward spiral of Willy Loman as a character. On the whole, Willy Loman’s hunt for success and refusal to progress are the chains in his
Vonnegut has the opinion that free will is “rarely used in any of his novels” (Westerblom 17). Vonnegut believes that the characters in his novel “have suffered at the hands of fate for so long that they often give up on exerting their free will and surrender to their fate” (17). Billy is the best example of this in his novel. Westerblom says “his experiences from the war together with his sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Billy surrenders control of his free will and embraces his fate” (17). Schroder states her belief in an article that Vonnegut views quietism and “fatalism” as a coping mechanism for a person to “slip blissfully and thoughtlessly into the mindless routine of daily existence thus dismissing free will” (qtd. in
Billy allows himself to be ruled by chance and when his time travels first begin, he does nothing to try and control when they happen or where they go. Billy knows that the Tralfamadorians are coming, but does nothing to stop it and goes with them freely. Billy saw a "flying saucer from Tralfamadore, navigation both space and time, therefore seeming to Billy Pilgrim to have come from nowhere all at once" (Vonnegut 95) These feelings stayed with Billy throughout the many odd occurrences of his life. When still a child in the eyes of society, Billy was sent off to fight World War II in Europe. There he be...
In Slaughterhouse Five written by Kurt Vonnegut, the plot focuses on a man who tends to regress back to his childhood, and earlier life using three important themes. These important themes are the destructiveness of war, the illusion of free will, and the importance of sight. In this novel, Kurt Vonnegut reflects on his experiences in the war in 1945 as a prisoner of war. This man is named Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is a former prisoner of war who tends to be stuck in the same mindset as before. Billy is seeking forgiveness for his past, so that one day he can reach an oasis of serenity. Serenity is the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled with life. In order to reach serenity, Billy Pilgrim comes across a prayer. The prayer of serenity
Would you rather make your own decisions in life or have them already decided for you? That is what it is like to let your belief in fate guide your life. The main character Billy Pilgrim of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut chooses to let fate decide his life, instead of him deciding his own. All throughout the novel he lets this unknown force choose being able to see old friends, allowing him to blame his responsibilities and making him accept his death even when it is avoidable in that situation. An essential theme in Slaughterhouse Five is that it is important to take control of your life as opposed to letting fate lead the way.
Willy Loman equates success as a human being with success in the business world. When Willy was a young man, he heard of a salesman who could "pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without ever leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, make his living." (81) This salesman is Willy's inspiration; someday to be so respected and so well known that he can still provide for his family, even at an old age. Of course, Willy is no good at being a salesman because his heart isn't in it. The only time Willy puts his heart into anything is when he works with his hands, and his son, Biff, comes to realize this. "There's more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made." (138) Willy never comes to the realization that it is not being a salesman that he cares about, but rather being well known and, perhaps more importan...
Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman follows protagonist Willy Loman in his search to better his and his family’s lives. Throughout Willy Loman’s career, his mind starts to wear down, causing predicaments between his wife, two sons and close friends. Willy’s descent into insanity is slowly but surely is taking its toll on him, his job and his family. They cannot understand why the man they have trusted for support all these years is suddenly losing his mind. Along with his slope into insanity, Willy’s actions become more aggressive and odd as the play goes on. Despite Willy and Biff’s “family feud”, his two sons Happy and Biff truly worry about their father’s transformation, Happy saying: “He just wants you to make good, that’s all. I wanted to talk to you about dad for a long time, Biff. Something’s – happening to him. He – talks to himself” (Miller 21). Willy, as a father, cares about his children but he wishes they would do better. He believes Biff should have been an athlete. According to Harrington, “Even figuratively, Willy is haunted, and particularly in Biff’s failure to achieve success as a sports figure” (108). This haunting is part of what led to Willy’s slow plunge into madness. As Willy’s career in sales fails, he also fails, even failing his family. Heyen adds: “He didn’t have anything of real value to give to his family, or if he did, he didn’t know what it was” (48). His debilitating flashbacks and delusional hallucinations with Uncle Ben cement his horrifying realizations that he has let down his family. Willy Loman blames the economy for his downfall in his career. In one of his more extreme outbursts he exclaims, “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. ...
Willy’s hubris makes him feel extremely proud of what he has, when in reality he has no satisfaction with anything in his life. Willy Loman’s sons did not reach his expectations, as a father, but he still continued to brag about Biff and Happy in front of Bernard. Willy Loman caused the reader to empathize with him because before his tragic death he did everything he could for his family. Empathy, Hubris, and Willy Loman’s tragic flow all lead him to his death that distends from the beginning. He is unable to face reality and realize that he’s not successful in life or at his job; he remains living in a world where he thinks he’s greater than everybody else because he’s a salesman.