IndexOccasional structure of the novel "Slaughterhouse-five" Kurt Vonnegut's partiality on the comparison between free will and destinyConclusionWar has been, unquestionably, an element of the history of every civilization throughout the time, but the cause of the war, however, is a matter of dispute. Is war something that humans bring with them or has it been deemed inevitable, regardless of the circumstances? In many ways, the question of the cause of war is what led Kurt Vonnegut to write Slaughterhouse-five. After reflecting on his own war experiences for decades, Kurt Vonnegut presents the war in Slaughterhouse-five as uncontrollable and touches on even larger themes of free will and destiny, making an unconventional, yet extremely moving anti-war statement. In Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut introduces the main character, Billy Pilgrim, with the epic struggle between free will and destiny, demonstrating the differences between free will and destiny through a spatial concept of time and explaining the relevance of free will and destiny through examples of death and war to raise awareness of human control over destiny. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayBoth free will and destiny are considered in terms of a spatial concept of time and explored thoroughly by the main character, Billy Pilgrim, after his experience in the bombing of Dresden during World War II. Billy Pilgrim is left in a state of psychological instability after having to face such horrific situations during World War II, and makes the subconscious decision to deal with the pain by creating an alternate universe where the death and war he witnessed have no meaning (Vonnegut 29). ). This alternate universe is called Tralfamadore and serves as a tool for Kurt Vonnegut to present the ideals of predestination. The inhabitants of Tralfamadore, known as Tralfamadorians, are the beings who introduce the concepts of predestination and destiny into Billy Pilgrim through their concept of time. The aliens do this by explaining “to Billy that time is different for Tralfamadorians and Earthlings because in the fourth dimension, time is spatial, and one can visit a moment in time as Earthlings visit places” (Hines 1). This means that time is not linear, but that Billy Pilgrim experiences time as if he were on a long journey out of order. The moments in Billy Pilgrim's life are oriented as various places one can travel to, not as a linear sequence of cause and effect. Occasional Structure of the Novel "Slaughterhouse-Five" Not only is the Tralfamadorian concept of time spatial, but "moments in time," meaning different places along a life path, can be viewed out of chronological order. This explains the sporadic structure of the novel (Harris, “Time” 1). Kurt Vonnegut constructed Slaughterhouse-five not to be read as a chronological story, but as a group of uncontrollable events to convey the meaning of fate and its effect on Billy Pilgrim's perception of life. The Tralfamadorian concept of time, in addition to not being chronological, is also seen as simultaneous (Harris, “Time” 1). “Everything that has happened or will happen exists in a vast, omnipresent, eternal present,” meaning there is no linear, cause-and-effect temporal order (Harris, “Time” 1). All moments are about the moment and should not be viewed as individual decisions. Time, however, is spatial, and “rather than each moment arrives once and then vanishes forever, Billy can relive moments of hispast and preview those of its future” (Hines 1). At whatever point in his life Billy Pilgrim comes to visit him, he is already aware of what has happened up to that point and after. Billy Pilgrim's knowledge of his entire lifespan is why his life, and Tralfamadorianism, are considered ubiquitous temporal structures. Since Billy Pilgrim can relive moments from his past and preview moments from his future, he carries the information he learns about his future into his past. In this sense, Billy Pilgrim has the ability to “predict the future,” except that he has actually already experienced the future (Vonnegut 29). Tralfamadorians see this ability as the ability to “see time in a completely different way than humans. They see an entire event instead of individual moments like humans” (Lewis 1). Tralfamadorians can see life as a whole, while humans are only aware of the past and do not know what to expect from the future. In this sense, Tralfamadorians have a more perceptive understanding of life than humans because they can see all the events of a life at once. Billy Pilgrim explains in his own words: Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just as we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for example. They can see how permanent all the moments are and can watch any moment that interests them. It's just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another, like beads on a string, and once that moment is gone it's gone forever (Vonnegut 34). Kurt Vonnegut uses strong metaphors to describe the differences between Tralfamadorianism and Tralfamadorism. linear time and lets the reader know that Billy Pilgrim is well aware of his past, present, and future. In this particular metaphor, the entire Rocky Mountain range symbolizes an entire span of life. Humans see the Rocky Mountains as a single connected unit, just as the Tralfamadorians see life as a single episode. If Tralfamadorians saw life as individually organized events, this would imply that events in life have a pattern of cause and effect. Although Billy becomes fully aware of all the various moments in his life, he cannot understand any connection between those moments and sees them as a series of random events. Once Billy Pilgrim discovers the fate of his future, he feels helpless, knowing that no matter what his actions, the consequences will result in his predetermined death. This, in itself, is the curse of Billy Pilgrim's gift, meaning that Billy Pilgrim has been given the wisdom of Tralfamadorianism but can do nothing with that wisdom (Harris, "Themes" 1). Tralfamadorianism can be explained as “the philosophy… that every moment in time is pre-structured without purpose, but is totally random. But, despite the randomness of the moment, it cannot be changed because it simply exists as it is” (Hines 1). Kurt Vonnegut presents Tralfamadorism not only as a concept of time, but also as a philosophy, and this is how Billy Pilgrim uses it as an escape from the trauma of war. Billy Pilgrim uses Tralfamadorianism as a shield that protects him from the real world where decisions need to be made and those decisions have consequences. With the philosophy of Tralfamadorianism, however, Billy Pilgrim does not have to make decisions and uses the excuse of predestination to reason out any unfortunate events. The most notable of the unfortunate events Billy Pilgrim experiences is World War II, specifically the bombing of Dresden. Although Billy Pilgrim uses Tralfamadorianism as an excuse for war, it, like war, presents himsituations that are beyond his control. Time itself is out of his control, as is how Billy Pilgrim sees time. (Harris, “Time” 1). The Tralfamadorians enlighten Billy by stating: “Time does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment and you will find that we are all…bugs in amber” (Vonnegut 97). In Slaughterhouse-five, Billy Pilgrim, despite himself, is the bug in the amber because he finds himself in moments of his life without his control and exudes a frozen state of mind. In this state of mind, Billy Pilgrim establishes no control over his own actions or the actions of others and approaches life with a passive numbness. This frozen state of mind that Billy Pilgrim experiences demonstrates his helplessness and vulnerable position in life. Billy Pilgrim's sense of helplessness results in his ultimate acceptance of fate and admission of his lack of control over his life. One of the most obvious elements of life that Billy Pilgrim has no control over is how he travels through time (Vonnegut 29). “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he goes next, and travel isn't necessarily fun” (Vonnegut 29). Billy Pilgrim has no control over his time travel and therefore has no control over his life. He is a passive personality and Kurt Vonnegut makes little effort to portray him as little more than that: passive and helpless (Lewis 1). This obvious lack of description and character development is intentional, however, and Kurt Vonnegut uses the lack of description to reinforce his themes. “Vonnegut's characterization of characters is neither dramatic nor descriptive: they are simply there. This is an important part of the plot, though. Vonnegut wants us to think that the characters have no will and are forced by a stronger force: fate” (Lewis 1). Kurt Vonnegut's deliberate lack of description further reinforces the theory of Tralfamadorianism by portraying Billy Pilgrim as a helpless spectator of his own life. Considering that Tralfamadorianism supports the concept of pre-destination, the word Tralfamadore becomes synonymous with destiny and therefore with the absence of freedom. Want. As a soldier in World War II, Billy struggled between the concepts of destiny and free will, but after being introduced to Tralfamadorianism, he appears to stop investigating his life and simply accepts it (Hines 1). When the Tralfamadorians first came into contact with Billy, their explanation of life was “because the moment simply is…there is no why” (Vonnegut 97). This explanation demonstrates the ideal that life has no reasoning or purpose. In Tralfamadore, and consequently, in Billy Pilgrim's state of mind, there is no free will and no room for decision making. However, the theory of predestination is a theory that modern people are generally not accustomed to. Kurt Vonnegut presents free will as a special concept that separates humans from beings like the Tralfamadorians who do not believe in creating their own destiny. Slaughterhouse-Five introduces an alternative to free will that many readers are unaware of, and in doing so, causes the reader to examine their own beliefs after learning about Tralfamadorian beliefs. In a meeting between Billy Pilgrim and a Tralfamadorian, the Tralfamadorian reveals: If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings, I would have no idea what free will means. I have visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe and studied the accounts of a hundred others. Only on Earth is there talk of free will (Vonnegut 86). Kurt Vonnegut's prejudice on the comparison between free will and destiny“Mr. Vonnegut explains his point of view on the freefree will… without free will, nothing makes sense, because it will serve no purpose” (Green 1). In Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut takes free will and places it on a pedestal, declaring it the element that drives our will to live. Free will is what separates humans from Tralfamadorians, and free will is also what gives life its purpose. Through Kurt Vonnegut's personal commentary in the first chapter and the way Kurt Vonnegut describes Billy Pilgrim as a helpless bystander in his own life, it becomes apparent that Kurt Vonnegut is an enthusiastic advocate of free will. The battle between free will and destiny takes center stage in this anti-war novel and it is evident that “one of the most important themes is that of free will, or, more precisely, the absence thereof” (Harris, “Themes” 1 ). By making free will so obsolete in Billy Pilgrim's life, Kurt Vonnegut incites the reader to actively hope that Billy Pilgrim will take control of his life. Kurt Vonnegut reveals his hopes when he speaks in the first person in the first chapter admitting, “And I wondered about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep” (Vonnegut 23). In this case of uncertainty, Kurt Vonnegut expresses his curiosity regarding the scope of free will and its role in the individual's life. However, Kurt Vonnegut's desire for free will demonstrates the willingness that all human beings have to maintain an active role in their own lives. Even though Kurt Vonnegut has a strong regard for the concept of free will, he still presents the concept of destiny as a form of comparison. . Kurt Vonnegut is clear in making the point: “Any form of predestination nullifies free will” (Hines 1). Kurt Vonnegut allows the character Billy Pilgrim to demonstrate free will for a portion of the novel by giving him the choice to choose or deny free will. When Billy Pilgrim chooses to accept Tralfamadorianism, that is the last choice he will make for himself, and the moment Billy Pilgrim makes that decision, he gives up control of his life (Lewis 1). Although both free will and fate are present in Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut uses fate to demonstrate how people can allow the elements of life to override their free will. In the case of Billy Pilgrim, Billy Pilgrim allows his post-war insecurities to override his desire to actively live his life. Indeed, Billy Pilgrim's postwar trauma, and later Kurt Vonnegut's postwar trauma, is what begins the internal struggle between free will and destiny. With the message of an anti-war novel in mind, the concepts of free will and destiny are applied to numerous situations where death is involved. “Death is the central point to which all the action in the book connects,” meaning that death is literally the main plot of the story, considering that a death occurs at least once in every chapter (Green 1). Death is an inevitable aspect of life, which Billy witnesses in war, at home, in his family, and through space time, Billy Pilgrim is even able to see his own. Billy Pilgrim's ability to see his own death makes death the ultimate form of predestination because it is an inevitable aspect of life that cannot be determined by humans. To deflect his fear of death, Billy Pilgrim applies Tralfamadorism to his life and is able to understand death on a different level. When speaking in the first person, Kurt Vonnegut implies that he too has gained a better understanding of death and its relevance in life. (Vonnegut 103). “Death seems too real for Vonnegutmay omit it from his reinvented cosmos, but by reinventing the nature of time, Vonnegut deprives death of its sting” (Harris, “Time” 2). The reason Tralfamadorians are able to desensitize death is because “when a Tralfamadorian sees a dead body, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad shape at that particular time, but that the same person is fine in many other moments." (Vonnegut 34). Tralfamadorians see death as something insignificant and insignificant compared to their overall perception of life. Thus, although Tralfamadorism is based on predestination, the theory of space time allows for an unconventional view of death that deprives it of its overall impact on life. Considering the way Tralfamadorians view death, it is considered entirely meaningless and insignificant, and it is in this particular aspect of Tralfamadorism that Billy Pilgrim clings to to avoid deteriorating after the war. Billy Pilgrim is willing to accept Tralfamadorism after witnessing the Dresden atrocities and takes the attitude that, "given the absence of free will and the inevitability of events, there is little reason to worry excessively about death" (Harris , "Themes" 1). Billy Pilgrim, in his later years, also shares these ideas with other people because he has become so comfortable under the shield, Tralfamadorianism, that separates Billy Pilgrim from reality: It is entirely in line with his calling, so when he has learned to see time in a completely new Tralfamadorian way, which should try to correct the erroneous Western view of time and explain to everyone the senselessness of individual death, because everyone lives forever in the eyes of a Tralfamadorian (Lewis 1). Since Tralfamadorian time is ever-present and haunting, a person's death is only a part of the entire, collective lifespan. Tralfamadorianism is basically an elaborate escape method that Billy Pilgrim creates to make his life easier and to lessen the impact that death once had on his life. Slaughterhouse: Five after each death case mentioned. This phrase is not only a way for Billy Pilgrim to distract himself from his own death, but it also allows Billy Pilgrim to denote the death of others as well (Green 1). “'So it goes' reminds us that no matter how important we think our death or the death of a loved one is, there have been countless billions of deaths before us” (Green 1). This obnoxious statement coincides with the theory of Tralfamadorianism because in a predestined world nothing can be done to escape or alter death. Tralfamadorians do not give much importance to death because they see it as something outside their realm. “By letting instances of death fade into oblivion with ‘so it goes,’ Vonnegut conveys to readers that death, the ultimate sacrifice in war, can be a rather indifferent matter” (Young 1). By placing less emphasis on the final outcome of life, Billy Pilgrim is able to see death as an insignificant outcome of a predestined life. This attitude can also be applied to war situations and allows Billy to remember World War II as a detached spectator rather than a suffering participant. When Kurt Vonnegut brings the reader to the climax of the novel, the bombing of Dresden, the sense of helplessness is finally understood. Just as individual deaths have no specific meaning, it was not individual deaths in war that impacted Billy Pilgrim, it is the collective death toll of war that causes him to resort to Tralfamadorianism (Young 1). After Billy Pilgrim mentioned his experience in Dresden several times in Slaughterhouse-five, the actual event itself.