I encourage you all to post questions, insights, and connections regarding Vonnegut's novel. Please remember to adhere to rules of appropriate academic analytical commentary. This is a forum for literary investigation and discovery! I will start the ball rolling with the first question:
What do you think might be significant about the protagonist's name? Discuss.
The connection is to Herman Melville's character Billy Budd.
ReplyDeletehow would billy budd relate? billy budd was more of a symbol for the innocent and wrongfully persecuted.
ReplyDeleteMuch like the pilgrims, Billy was introduced to an entirely new world. In his new environment, Billy was tought principles that changed his way of thinking. This is much like the Native Americans teaching the pilgrims about agriculture and the irrgation system.
ReplyDeleteThat was a really interesting insight TJ!
ReplyDeleteTo me, Billy Pilgrim's name identifies him with both the aforementioned Melville character (Billy Budd) AND a spiritual quest.
He is like Billy Budd in that he is innocent and largely the victim of circumstance---he simply became unstuck in time one day, was dragged through the snow by Weary, simply was abducted by aliens, etc. As you read on in the book, there are more situations where Billy's predicament is affected by variables mostly beyond his control. I see him as, largely, a symbol for the basic or "natural" man, affected by circumstance, just like Billy Budd. But that is only one aspect of his being.
His experiences with the Tralfamadorians, especially his coming to understand their view of time and focusing on "the good parts," coincide greatly with many of my own realizations. Although it may be a stretch to call them spiritual, I see the Tralfamadorians as a symbol for a new way of thinking, and Billy Pilgrim as one of the pioneers in bringing this thought to the human race, much like the pilgrims from England helped establish a European link to the New World (as TJ said).
In many forms of Indian religion, and Buddhism, "Samsara" is the concept of suffering, which is inseparable from human existence: by becoming elevated above non-sentient animals (whose emotions merely guide them in survival), man largely traded his "innocence" for the ability to reason, and took on suffering as a burden rather than survival; our emotions torture us, rather than help us survive, because we are so advanced that we no longer worry about fighting off predators and the like. However, the idea of "Nirvana," akin to the concept of heaven but realized in a state of mind (complete contentedness) rather than a physical place, is the way to travel BEYOND that suffering; to reach Nirvana is to escape from emotion and the cycle of reincarnation and ascend to a higher "plane," beyond man, where all is perfect.
The Tralfamadorians are inhuman---aliens, in fact---and have a much wider perception than humans. They are also unaffected emotionally by death or anything else, because they can choose to live only in the good moments. From my perspective, the Tralfamadorians are the ideal being, above humans because they can simply enjoy life and ignore the bad parts, without reacting to emotions or dwelling on the past/future. Keeping this in mind, I see Billy Pilgrim's name as a connection to his "spiritual quest," as he endeavors to go beyond human suffering and join the Tralfamadorians in Nirvana.
His identification with Billy Budd (the "natural man" inherent in everyone) emphasizes the idea that everyone can follow in Billy's footsteps, if they shed off their pretensions and self-compromisations and enter a more innocent or pure or natural state of mind. By letting go of the characteristics that make us so "human" (i.e., the way Lot's wife looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah after God's wrath was unleashed), we can learn to enjoy everything and ascend to the level of Tralfamadorians.
Billy tries to communicate this knowledge to humans so that they, too, can be always happy, knowing that no one ever dies, but sadly, wisdom is not communicable; only derived through one's own experiences.
Sorry this was so long, and apologies if it didn't make sense! I just get so excited about literature :)
Two comments:
ReplyDelete1) Pilgrims were early settlers who explored a new land and made it known to all, thanks to their courage. Similarly, Billy, for once in his life, took initiative to tell the world of the amazing news delivered by the Tralfamadorians: time just IS and acceptance of that leads to happiness (even though most humans thought him to be insane.)
2) WHO THE HECK IS SVEN?!
How does sex in the fourth dimension work? Apparently the Tralfamadorians found five other human sexes in the fourth dimenson.
ReplyDeleteSven's identity must never be disclosed.
ReplyDeleteWe love you Sven!
ReplyDelete