Satire
– combines a critical attitude with wit and humor to improve society.
Forget the Tralfamadorians. Don’t bother your head considerably about
their conceptions of time. That stuff is
all low-grade science fiction. The heart
of the novel, and what makes Vonnegut an Important Author (I do believe that
people will be studying him in 100 years), is his satire.
You have already chosen ten passages from Slaughterhouse-5. Those you will/have turned in in class. Now, chose one of those ten, and write a lectio on it. (Be sure to include the quotation in your lectio.) Post it below.
This will be due no later than Wednesday, October 28. (Don't worry. It's a quick read.)
Then, after the 28th, you must read everyone else's lectios, and write a response to one of those. This portion of the assignment will be due no later than Wednesday, November 4.
Leah Wytas says: You're all a bunch of slackers! (No, sorry, she didn't say that. I don't know who said that.)
ReplyDelete“Tralfamadorians, of course, say that every creature and plant in the Universe is a machine” (Vonnegut 154).
When I think about passage, my mind flashes back to English class in eighth grade. My teacher told us that she lived across from a house that remained vacant most of the time. But always around a particular time of year, there would be lots of noise and commotion happening at the house. Once her two sons went over to see what was going on. It turned out that the house was being occupied by children from Korea in some sort of travel program to come to America and learn about the culture in the country. There were lots of children, and some of them were as young as eight years old. They were not only on this trip to learn about American culture but to also look for colleges in the country. This story was to tell us eight graders to step it up and do well in school because we no longer were competing to get into colleges against students in our own country but against the world.
I hated this lesson. I did not want to think that I had to compete with every person my age to get into college and lead a successful life. I know that in some countries, it is quite hard for many to get to college because only the top students get to move on. If schools in America did only take about the top ten percent of every high school class to go to college, then they would be turning down lots of great people who may not be the best students, but they have other talents. I have many friends who are in the top twenty of our class. I envy them, because working as hard as I can to be a perfect student, I cannot handle more than two honors or Uconn classes per year. However, I am a well-rounded person. I get above average grades in school, but I am no genius. I am a good athlete, but not talented enough to earn scholarships or
head to the Olympics. I am a skilled artist, but so are many others. I think that people are more than just grades, they are individuals that bring something unique to the world. We have natural abilities in some areas and weaknesses in others. Our experiences also contribute to our knowledge and abilities. I feel that different kinds of people can interact and learn from each other. We are not perfect because we are not machines, we are human beings. We will make mistakes and we are not infallible. The only thing we can do is learn from them.
I completely agree with everything you said. Sometimes I feel like I'm treated as a machine that will be able to execute every order given to me. I am expected to get all A's in the classes I take, and this is very tough to do when I have soccer practice every day and college applications to do. By the time I get home from practice and work on my college application I am exhausted, but well aware that I still have to do homework for two AP courses and a math course. I understand that I am supposed to manage my time, but sometimes it is impossible and I have to turn in shoddy work or get very little sleep. Not to mention I have a social life and want to have fun. I just wish I would be seen sometimes as a person that isn't perfect instead of a machine. I also liked your point about how competition is making it increasingly more difficult to get into colleges and/or other pursuits. It is terrifying to think that if you like something but don't really excel at it then you might as well not even bother with it because there are thousands if not millions of people out there that can do it better then you. Like you said, humans are not machines and will occasionally make mistakes. I'm interested to see what the expectations and demands of people will be in a hundred years, because I believe competition will force humans to be perfect with absolutely no room for errors.
DeleteBreann says:
DeleteLeah, I absolutely loved reading your lectio and agree with everything you had to say about how we are more than just machines. We are humans and we should be different and make mistakes. We are just taught that we need to be perfect, like a machine.
Everything revolves are numbers. Our whole lives are determined based on numbers. Our age, our GPA, our SAT scores, our ACT scores, the amount of money we have, how much time we have in a day, our weight, the grades we get on everything single thing we do in school, and, in my case, how fast I can run a 5k. No matter how hard we try to break this, numbers define who we are.
In life, a lot of time people are only going to see us for the numbers. But yet we are not machines. Although, we sure do act like them. We all do many of the same things. Go to school, get good grades, try to have a social life, participate in sports or have a job, and ty to get sleep and be a normal person.
Like you said, we are all different in terms of what we are good in. But life doesn’t always want to see us that way. People want to see us how they want to see us. In my opinion, that is in the numbers of our lives. This is not a good thing. We should be known for as our personalities and how we are different from each other. People are the ones trying to change that. Now-a-days, if you are too different you are shunned for it. If you think a different way, you are punished. And if you aren’t the best in every single aspect of your life, then you are considered not perfect.
Then they tell us that we are not machines.
Breann says:
ReplyDeleteThroughout reading this book, there were many things that made me stop and think. Perhaps it was because of a connection I have to an idea, or to think about how Kurt Vonnegut looked at life. I would have to say the paragraph I kept thinking back on would be from page 76-77, ‘”Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,’ said the loudspeaker. ‘Any questions?’ Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: ‘Why me?’ ‘That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is.’” (page 76-77).
I kept finding myself thinking back to this short conversation because of the word Earthling. These “aliens” have never been on Earth before and are shocked by how we always ask why me? For every person there has been many things that we wonder to ourselves, why did this have to happen to me? Whether it be something as tragic as a death of a loved one, or something as small as being stuck in a traffic jam and being late to work. As a society we always wonder why bad things happen to us.
There are many ways to take it. You could look at the situation as the aliens do for saying, “Because this moment simply is.” I take that in a sense of it happened, I’m not sure why but it did now move on. Another way to take this made me think back to something I saw online. It was a conversation between a man and God. Even though I am not a very religious person, this has stuck with me. The conversation went kind of like this; the man listed off everything that went wrong with his day. For example, alarm not going off, stuck behind an accident of the highway, food order being wrong, and dealing with angry clients. The man then asked God why he would let all this bad stuff happen to him. God humbly responded by saying he let the man sleep a few minutes so he could ward off the death angel above the man’s bed. Then, God made the man get stuck behind the accident so he wouldn’t be the one in the accident. God made the food order be wrong because there was food poisoning in the original order. And lastly, the man had to deal with angry workers so when he went home he could appreciate his loving family. The man then felt stupid for blaming God when he was just trying to help the man out.
The last way is the butterfly effect. The theory that every little thing is somehow connected. And if one thing falls out of place, everything shatters. So that is why. That’s why stuff happens to us and we can’t quite figure it out. But in the end, it all works out and is all a part of a bigger plan.
Breann, I really enjoyed reading your lectio. What you said really resonated with me. I thought that what you said about the “Because the moment simply is,” meaning, ‘take what happened and move on,’ to heart. You can’t change what has happened or what you may have done. It makes me think about how I get stressed out about things that have already happened, such as tests, and how I need to reevaluate that. I need to accept that what has happened and move on, just like you said. It also reminds me of Tennyson’s In Memorium poems. It is not simple for Tennyson to move on from his close friend’s death, but I feel that the Tralfalmadorians would tell him the same thing they told Billy Pilgrim: to move on and just accept that it’s happened. In short, nothing Tennyson can do will bring back Hallam.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase that captured my attention was: "That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones" (Vonnegut 117). How does an alien species billions of miles away seem to sum up all of Earth's problems into one sentence, yet we still have not really begun to acknowledge this?
ReplyDeleteThis is mentioned when Billy and one of the Tralfamadorians are chatting about war on Earth, but it goes for any problem, minuscule or large, in a person's life. I disagree partially with the concept the alien is suggesting, but only because I believe we learn from the bad times and must be aware of their existence in order to stop their occurrence. At least, that is what every history teacher says.The aliens (I'm typing that because it is shorter than Tralfamadorians) do have such different genetic makeups than the Earth humans, so maybe this one does not understand that obtaining peace is mostly impossible, as long as those such as psychopaths and sociopaths exist. Or maybe he/she/it does, and still offers this as advice as they know it would still help.
The guide is mostly right, other than the aforementioned. I believe that people focus way too much on their 'problems.' It baffles me why someone, for example, would get a bad test grade and then decide their life is over. Remember when you got that A+ the other day? Yeah, remember that instead. That's just a silly example but the least offensive and insensitive one I thought of.
The passage reminds me of the 'struggle' that every adolescent goes through when 'discovering themselves in high school.' However, I am so guilty of not ignoring the awful times in this case. All four years have been an 'awful' time filled with procrastination and dread mostly. But at least I am still able to remember some of the great classes and new friendships!
Life really is all about keeping positive so one can move forward. Even though there are wars and murder and other terrible things, people still do things everyday that highlight their intent to having 'good times,' instead of the bad ones. I guess everyone just needs to think how the alien thinks, so that we may reduce Earth's 'awfulness.'
Ally was moved to reply:
DeleteI really enjoyed this quote as well Melissa. I also saw the fault in it on how we should learn from our mistakes. I do this often. I think us as teenagers going through high school we make a lot of mistakes and we should so that we can learn to never do those things again.
I do agree with this quote partly though because I feel that it addresses the fact of how our society tends to be negative a lot of the time. This is like how when you watch the news and 95% of it is murders and robberies and then they decide to lighten to mood for the last 5 minutes of the show and tell a story about a cute puppy.
I think our society has a weird interest and intrigue toward negative things. Most successful drama TV shows are about crimes and murders. I think it's weird how our society focuses on the negativity in the world. I agree with the Tralfamadorians in the sense that we should spend more time surrounding ourselves with the positivity in life instead of all of the murders.
I think if we as a society focused less on the crimes in the world then we wouldn't live so much in fear. We would be able to enjoy our lives much more without fear of being robbed or killed all of the time like that character on Criminal Minds.
Ahmelia says:
ReplyDelete“There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could smell his breath - mustard gas and roses.” This is said by the narrator when he discusses one of Billy’s flashbacks. The reason this quote stood out to me was because it shows how visions of his past still haunt him to this day. Billy smelled mustard gas which is a chemical weapon used in combat. The fact he still has this smell engraved in his mind is one of the many examples of Billy’s PTSD.
Later on in the book Billy tells of a time in the war, after Dresden when they were cleaning up the bodies. While they were cleaning up the bodies he said it smelt like mustard gas and roses. That smell he smelt during the war carried on with him many years after the war when he “smelt” it over the phone. Flashbacks of the war represent how Billy suffers from PTSD.
PTSD is a sensitive subject for me because my grandfather has it from his time in the military and my mother has it after she got trapped inside my house as it was burning down. Billy’s mind goes back to thinking about the war when his mind is triggered by the smallest things like a scent or a thought of a scent. My mother’s flashbacks trigger when she hears an ambulance or smells a fire. PTSD is a very consuming disorder and Billy clearly suffers from it as we can tell from the book. Mustard gas to me represents the fighting and killing and the weaponry used in the war, whereas the roses represent the beauty before the war happened. So the combination of the two scents is a powerful thing because it shows the destroyance of the beauty. Which destroyance of beauty would defiantely affect someone, like it did too Billy so the fact he now remembers those scents makes me hurt for all of the men and women who suffer from PTSD or even had to see the things we are all sheltered from. I applaud Billy for being surviving all of the hardships he had survived and I applaud him for surviving many years after that, struggling with the harsh memories of the war.
Of my ten quotations, I chose to write about a passage which particularly resonates with me. Found on page 102, “She upset Billy by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all”. Everyone can probably relate to finding themselves irritated by their mother, (or father), and unable to pinpoint a reason why. I know Billy’s circumstance is different from my own, but I connect with his emotional strife. My mom won’t confess her real expectations of me, I’m not sure she even knows that she has them.
ReplyDeleteI understand a parent can’t help but imagine their child’s future, typically pictured as bright; shining with success. However, the guilt and shame I admit to concealing is continuous. At times, I am as unenthusiastic about life as Billy is, and it’s hard to handle around my mom. I’m not implying that my mom is ignorant about life’s dark times, or that her life is perfect, but she has always kept an optimistic outlook when thinking of the future. This positive energy is something I struggle to maintain.
As an eight-year old girl my mom knew what career she wanted when she grew up, and she has never strayed from that profession. In comparison to her simple idea of life, I feel like a mental-case. I don’t know what I want to do tomorrow, never mind for the rest of my life. And so, the moment I read the explanation of Billy’s behavior toward his mother, I totally understood. I wish that I could hide my emotions from my mom as Billy did. I’m too afraid to face the constant reminder of the life I sometimes feel I’m wasting. My mom has put so much effort into my existence and now it is my job to keep her proud of the person she created. The possibility of disappointing is always looming, and I think that concept overpowered Billy’s self-compassion.
I really enjoyed reading this book, it was a nice blend of informal and thought-provoking text. I was drawn to way more than ten quotations because Billy is such a complex character, I would’ve been interested in reading more of his story. I’d also like to know more about Kurt Vonnegut because his style of writing leads me to believe he and Billy are profoundly alike.
Interestingly enough I can relate to your connection to the quotation, although in my case, it was the opposite. I am optimistic, have high expectations for myself, and am constantly am trying to work towards becoming a better person. On the other hand, my mother raised me with the knowledge that she would be proud of me no matter what I did. For me, this was not enough, I am always striving to do more and be as efficient as possible so I can be successful. I could not understand why my mom was so content with waiting out her days for something good to happen to her instead of making something happen. She was unemployed ever since my brother was born and she gave up working to raise my brother, sister, and me. It simply did not make sense to me that she could sit back and let life pass by without fighting to make a change and impact the course of her life. Over time her actions and decisions have made more sense to me, but when I was in my early teens, I could not fathom her lackadaisical attitude. My mother and I are very different in how we go about our lives, but now I believe we each have a fair understanding and appreciation of each other's attitudes and methods of making decisions.
DeleteAs I read Slaughterhouse 5 I ran into the same three words over and over again, “So it goes.” These words resonated within me, the same message I relate to myself after each successive horrible thing that seems to happen in my life. When I was eight I was diagnosed with diabetes. So it goes. At ten my father lost his job and we got into deep debt. So it goes. At fifteen my father had a stroke that once again took him out of work, and also took him off of his feet, as he lost some of his basic motor skills. So it goes. A year later he dies the night that we have a big fight. So it goes.
ReplyDeleteIf life has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes you need to learn to roll with the punches, whether things are just turning up or if it seems like you are bound to stay in this eternal whirlpool of devastating depression. Sometimes I see people with horrible depression, some close to me and some who I’ve just met, and I can’t imagine how they live with it. The only thing that has kept me going through my life is the consistent thought in the back of my mind that says that life goes on whether you want it to or not. The thought of living in a state of constant unhappiness, with no hope of things becoming better, is something I would not wish on my worst enemy. I wish I could take a hold of them and just tell them that life sucks, and that you just need to live with the mind set of “So it goes.” But of course that is not a possibility, so I must deal with that fact. So it goes.
Do not misinterpret my philosophy as me moving on or not caring, because that is not so. There isn’t a day I don’t think about some of those horrible things in my life, but it is my belief that there are things that are out of our control, and to get caught up in it only serves to hurt you even more. SO the next time you get hurt by someone you thought you loved or something terrible happens to you, think to yourself “So it goes.” and get on with your life as time waits for no one.
Even though you accidentally used "so it goes" as your quotation, I'm glad you did because I was moved by this lectio more than any other. It showed how Vonnegut's message "so it goes" can be applied to almost anyone's life. Your circumstances are some of the most extreme, and that just speaks to how universal Vonnegut's message is. I also admire the determination you live by to keep going knowing life moves on, as you said. I've always believed the worst things sometimes happen to the best people because they are strong enough to overcome it, and I see that to be the case with you and your family. I'm sure Vonnegut would be ecstatic to know that his novel can relate to so many people and life philosophies in general. I too see the meaning of "so it goes" in my life, just not in the same ways as you or as anyone else. Everyone has their own circumstances, but "so it goes" is an inevitable statement about life moving on.
DeleteKurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is full of witty humor that’s satirical in nature. One example is when Billy was intoxicated one night and methodically searched for the steering wheel of his car, which he concluded must have been stolen. Vonnegut then writes, “He was in the backseat of his car, which is why he couldn't find the steering wheel,” (Vonnegut 47). At its surface, it’s just a funny description of a drunk guy because drunk guys are easy to laugh at, but I interpreted it as something more than just that. I perceived it as a jab at humanity’s tendency to do silly things when confused or unaware.
ReplyDeleteClearly, Billy was unaware that he wasn’t in the front seat; Billy was totally disoriented. This quotation speaks to me because it reminds me of a time when—don’t worry, not of a time when I was hammered like Billy—I forgot to turn off my alarm clock on a Friday night. At 5:45AM that Saturday morning, my alarm clock went blaring off, and I rolled over and pressed snooze for my usual extra seven minutes of heaven. The alarm sounded again, and I got up and threw a couple waffles in the toaster, just like always. My mom then got out of bed, looked at me with a tired, puzzled face, and asked, “Michael, what are you doing?” So I replied, “Getting ready for school; what are you doing?” She went on to say, “Wondering why you’re up so early on a Saturday.”
*cue the face palm*
Needless to say, I gobbled down those Eggos and went back to sleep. I was in disbelief when I realized it was Saturday. Like Billy, I wasn’t fully aware of the circumstances I was in, being under the impression that it was a school day because of my alarm. At least I was "under the impression" and not "under the influence" like poor Billy who must have been utterly offended at the fact that someone had the audacity to steal his steering wheel.
Vonnegut’s natural satirical voice shined through in that passage because Billy’s disorientation spoke of humanity’s tendency to do unusual things when under a wrong impression, an idea proven by my false alarm incident.
I agree, that part was comical, and I liked your anecdote. We've all been there! While technically it probably is satirical, I didn't think so much of Vonnegut's line as being outward with it. I just saw it more as comical instead of a jab at humans when they are drunk. I would understand if Vonnegut was indeed trying to be satirical with that line, I just didn't picture it like that. While he does use satire in the rest of the book, I felt he included this in a non-scrutinizing, simply amusing intention. Then again, I suppose it is hard to tell whenever any author intends on being satirical or not. He could of been, or he could have just been describing that event with phrasing that accidentally made it sound satirical. Humor is used to point out these kinds of mockeries, but I didn't sense any mockery towards alcohol or humans here.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by the quote from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, “The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd. It looked like a Sunday School Picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim,” (148). This is the first thing Billy sees when he arrives in Dresden for his “contract labor”. I find it extremely ironic that he is so laid back that he is able to just sit, or stand, in this crowded boxcar full of miserable prisoners of war, knowing that he was going to a concentration camp, and just take in the scenery. He was going to be forced to do work he did not want to do, live in horrid conditions, and live with people who either didn’t care about him or they wanted him dead. It reminds me of a scene in Doctor Who (Season 1 Episode 2 “End of the World”), in which Rose and the Ninth Doctor are looking out the window of a space station at a burning Earth. They know that it is about to be completely incinerated when the sun expands. However, the Doctor is just standing there talking about how beautiful the Earth is and reminiscing about the people that used to live there. It amazes me that he can stand there and say that people are too wrapped up in thinking about how the Earth is going to die, when they should be thinking about the bigger picture. The Earth dying is an awful event, but he is able to see good in it just like how Billy is able to see something beautiful in something preceding such an awful time. Also, the way in which Vonnegut described the skyline made me picture essentially how they depicted the Earth from space in that scene of Doctor Who. I imagine something serene, and majestic, and ethereal. He describes the sky as calming, which is where I see the serene and the majestic and the ethereal part. However, he also says that it is absurd at the same time. I am thinking the absurd is in reference to the fact that it is beautiful in spite of where it is taking place.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I cannot help but wonder what the other people in the car were thinking. Were they amazed at what they saw, or were they more appalled once they remembered or figured out that it is was a work camp. Rose starts out in the scene amazed by the beauty of what she is looking at, but when the Doctor tells her that, ‘Oh, and by the way, the Earth is going to die in a few minutes,’ she is more appalled at the thought of the Earth being so beautiful. She is thinking more along the lines of, ‘How can this seem so exquisite and peaceful right before my home planet explodes,’ than being calmed by it like the Doctor. She is more angry and shocked. I feel like while the other prisoners might be amazed at first, they’d then be angry about it, because I feel that they are probably more cognizant and caring about what’s actually going on than Billy is, so they won’t be more at ease to just go with it and be happy just because the sky looks nice.
“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living” (Vonnegut 101). This quote was spoken by Eliot Rosewater who was a profound character that channeled many of Vonnegut's satirical thoughts into the book. This quote at first sounds crazy and even psychotic at first. However, when you think about it for a second you realize it is just another brilliant demonstration of Vonnegut's satire.
ReplyDeleteRosewater is fed up with his life, as are many others at this time period. At this time (just three years after the war) many soldiers saw or experienced terrible things in the war and as a result are finding the meaning of life to be less appealing than before. Rosewater believes that if the world keeps going, without new lies as he sees it, then people will lose their interest in living.
Luckily, I myself have never been in a similar situation as Rosewater where I struggle to see the meaning of life. However, I have seen this struggle in others including my family. When my grandmother was approaching the end of her life she was in so much pain and could hardly maintain consciousness for more than a few minutes. She had a look on her face that seemed to say she wanted to leave the world and the pain behind. Her husband had died 10 years ago and she was in a nursing home. She felt lonely and had lost the meaning of life. It was tough to watch because she had lived in our house during my whole life up until two years ago and I was very close to her. My grandmother used to be very lively and happy and now she seemed to want to leave the world behind. This is one story of millions and there are many other people that have it even worse such as a terminal illness where they are aware they have a short time left on Earth. With this knowledge comes the thought, "Why bother living?" What is there to want to live for when you know your life is going to end soon and with a lot of pain. It is things out of the ordinary that are exciting and different from the routine life you live such as getting married, having a child, etc. Without such events, (or lies in Rosewater's case) what would be the meaning of life?
Leah says:
DeleteI agree that at first, the message in this quotation is disrupting, but taking a second look, it begins to make sense. With this passage, I think of Billy and Valencia when they were on their honeymoon. Valencia wanted Billy to tell his war story but Billy doesn’t want to think about his past. He says that some people romanticize war and are ignorant to its harsh realities. Billy and Rosewater’s war experiences have made them more aware of the darker side of life. I sense that Rosewater believes that ordinary people’s lives are lying to them because they are not seeing anything life threatening or disturbing.
The “lies” mentioned in this passage made me think of Drawing Class sophomore year. A project that we did was designing a playground representing the traditions, values, and beliefs of two countries that we chose to research. After everyone presented their playgrounds, the teacher turned to the class for a serious lecture. She said we live our lives doing everyday things giving no thought to the fact that there is war or poverty in other parts of the world. This makes me wonder, is living safe a lie? Can our everyday lives be keeping us from experiencing the truth just because it’s not happening right in front of us? I guess we will never fully understand until these cold, ugly truths bring themselves to us.
Ally says:
ReplyDelete"'If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings,' said the Tralfamadorian, 'I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will (86)."
This quote really resonated with me. Most of the things that the Tralfamadorians said in this novel caught my attention. They seemed to be a very wise people.
I ended up choosing this quote to write my lectio on because it addressed the idea of free will which I connect to. I am an avid member of the GSA even though I am not gay because I believe everyone deserves to live and love as they choose. I don't think people should be allowed to dictate who others are and aren't allowed to love. Everyone has a right to freedom and a free will.
This quotation speaks of how free will is unique to us humans. We haven't always had this idea in our society. There used to be things like slavery and misogyny which prevented anyone but white males from having free will. Our society has come a very long way since then, but there are still improvements to be made in order to ensure everyone to have their right to free will.
It is important for everyone to have freedom. When people are given freedom, they prosper.
Humans should embrace their empathy in order to allow everyone the free will that I believe they deserve. Empathy is one of many greatly beneficial emotions that humans can use to better our society. It should be embraced so that our free will can be strengthened.
Ally, I agree with every point you made. I also found this quote interesting because I couldn't tell if the Tralfamadorians were insinuating that humans are self-absorbed for obtaining free will. I feel lucky to be living in a position where I feel as if I have free will. However, as you said, there are still improvements to make in our world. I wonder if people living in countries with much less liberty than America feel as the Tralfamadorians do about free will. People living in areas overrun by men and religion may relate to the Tralfamadorians observation of free will, except they know only humans in more developed countries have free will. I'm not sure if my explanation is clear, but this passage made me think of GSA as well! Free will is defined as "the ability to act at one's own discretion", a privilege many people do not have if they struggle with their sexual identity. You also mentioned empathy, a trait I believe helps distinct humans from animals. When I hear stories of an adolescent being discriminated against, I feel as if the perpetrator is more animal than human.
DeleteAngelea says:
ReplyDelete“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like “Poo-tee-weet?”
In the beginning of the first chapter Vonnegut is addressing his publisher, known as Sam and even apologizing for having such a short manuscript. Vonnegut said that there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre, however, he is contradicting himself because he wrote a book about one. Which is clearly a major accomplishment. If you look at this quote piece by piece and try and forget about Vonnegut talking about his book and about the massacre the quote can relate to so many other aspects. After I looked very closely at this quote I realized it made me think of life in general and how “short and jumbled” it is. Some die young, some die old. It’s like a rollercoaster filled with ups and downs. Everything is so unexpected and short lived, yet some things are as you could call them “long lived”. For instance, relationships. There are some people who you meet and they are only a lesson in your life and then they are gone. Whereas others are meant to stay with you throughout your crazy journey, called life. Vonnegut also said in the quotation above how everyone is supposed to be dead and quiet after a massacre. I however disagree with this. I think this is when you have to dig down deep and find the things that make you happy and use that to help you mourn the loss of people you knew. This is a different kind of mourning. I believe this is a healthy mourning if you look more at the positives then the negatives. Of course it’s okay to be sad after something this tragic has happened but you can not be sad forever. If you are changing the massacre to more realistic terms like a death of a family member you can’t go on the rest of your life sulking. You must muster up your courage and find the reason to be happy and celebrate the lives that are still here. This is why I think Vonnegut included the bird song. Birds have always symbolized happiness because of the cheerful songs they sing. They also always sing in the morning which signifies new beginnings. Which is needed after the massacre or in our terms a death of a loved one. You must look for the good in bad situations rather than embrace the bad.
Josh says:
ReplyDeleteJosh Schramm
Slaughterhouse Five Lectio
The passage that stood out the most to me throughout this book was “And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race.” (Vonnegut 168). This quotation is so typical of many Americans nowadays and in a broader spectrum, the entire human race because it accurately captures the absurd aspects of human nature. The situation described was not shocking to me because humans are queer creatures and can make decisions that appear to be ridiculous and without reasonable explanation. People can simply overlook horrible acts consciously carried out by others but a characteristic so trivial as bad breath completely makes them unacceptable. The irony of this situation is hilarious which is one of the main reasons this passage stayed with me throughout the novel.
The most prominent example of this that came to me was during World War II. The Americans were strong allies with the Soviets because we had mutual goals. During the war, Stalin was in charge of the Soviet Union and did unspeakable things to his own people. Seeing as the United States were close allies with the Soviets and required their support on the western front, the Americans were apt to overlook some of Stalin’s less desirable traits. However, it is unacceptable to overlook such acts as the Terror-Famine, forcing his subjects to live in a constant state of fear, and sentencing innocents to death in gulags or forced labor camps. Once the war was over though, the American people were quick to sever all ties with the Soviets mainly on the basis that they did not agree with the Soviet Union’s method of government. Strange acts such as these occur consistently throughout history and will no doubt continue to occur. Humans seem to be so willing to see past the worst things that others do and put all of their focus on unimportant details such as the quotation describes.
Delany says:
ReplyDelete"Mustard gas and roses"
I think that this quotation that has been repeated throughout the novel is very powerful. Although not realized by me initially, I soon realized that the repetition of this phrase represents all that has followed him home from the war. This vile and poisonous scent from Dresden leaked from his mouth in his moments of weakness and in his times most affected by the war. An example is when he becomes vulnerable to the past during his bouts of drinking and when he looks back on the past. The way that mustard gas and roses personally came across to me is as an artificial attempt to cover up cruelties and evils that are very hard to actually deal with. In Dresden it was the massacre and all of the deaths that accompanied it and in Billy's life, it was his attempts to cover up his emotional damage caused by the war and his experiences. I see this lame attempt to cover up evils and wrongs a lot in society. In a literal application to today's life, it can be seen in men with PTSD returning from war while in a broader representation, it can be seen in the government and how they with little success attempt to cover up what is really going on in wars and on an international level.
Katia says:
ReplyDelete“Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don’t want those Earthlings to inhabit Earth anymore. Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs, he said, showering down knives and needles and razorblades.” (106)
This passage reminded me of a quote I read once from an astronaut named Edgar Mitchell about what it feels like to see the Earth from space, “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
Both quotes reflect my attitude towards war in general. To most people fighting the wars, the reasons for their violence seem justified because their country is good and the other is evil, they are right and the other is wrong, etc. However if you get rid of the “us vs them” mindset, and picture how the Earth would look from space, with no visible borders, there seems to be little justification for one intelligent species knowingly murdering other members of their own species. We consider animals that kill their offspring or other members of their own species to be barbaric and violent, but we do the same thing. If people, politician especially, would forget for a moment about all the differences between people and countries, and instead focus on the similarities, maybe everyone would be more willing to compromise and get along.
Mr. Mac says: "Is that everybody?"
ReplyDeleteJeremy says: "No, wait! Not Quite!"
ReplyDeleteDelaney wrote about mustard gas and roses, and her ability to equate it to things happening in today's world were very meaningful. I thought her connection to governments vain attempts to cover up their mistakes was extremely real and true and her connection to PTSD victims really hit home as I believe PTSD is one of the worst things you can get. Billy clearly suffers from some sort of PTSD and his entire convoluted story about aliens arises from his need to get away from society because he couldn't handle what happened to him. Delaney was spot on with her description and connections and I really couldn't agree more with everything she said.
Jonathan Smith says:
ReplyDelete"It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again."
I think that this line, and the paragraph preceding it, says a lot about conflict and war. Billy had wanted to watch a documentary about war, and ended up seeing the film forwards and backwards. Watching it forwards, it depicts a gritty conflict where people hurt and kill each other. Backwards, though, it seems like a heartwarming story where the Allies and Germans helped each other to heal their wounded, fix their planes, suck up the bombs, and dismantle them so that nobody could ever hurt anyone else with these weapons ever again. The thought of that, of unity and peace, is something that the whole world should want to strive for. But, the countries of the world have their own agendas and would rather help themselves first. Thus, conflict occurs between people who want things. In the modern age, I feel like we haven't really moved away from that standpoint at all. The US has always been at war with some country for the past few decades, like Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan. And now, it looks like conflict is brewing between the US and Russia. Are our "interests" worth thousands of human lives? With me talking like that, there's no way I'd get to be President. I know that it's unrealistic to think that the world is just going to cease all hostilities and work together to bring about an era of peace, because there will always be some unhappy people somewhere. I also know that sometimes, war is "necessary" to stop further war, but it does seem like a lot of people's hearts all around the world are not in the right place. Bombing them won't change that, though.
This quotation comes at the end of a passage where a movie Billy is watching reverses itself, so that acts of destruction become acts of healing.
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