Billy is unstuck in time. What might Vonnegut be trying to suggest about Billy's "time spasity?"
Billy's time spasity shows his struggle to live in a world that has been destroyed by war, it seems. His inability to control where and when he is “unstuck” displays Billy’s understanding of the notion of death, and his shared belief with the Tralfamadorian’s that people are not considered “dead” after they die. His time spastity parallels with the structure of the book: Vonnegut tells Billy’s story at the beginning of the book, and none of it is linear. The book tells Billy’s story sporadically, and this could be perhaps to show the instability in his world. He uses this literary device to parallel the structure of the book, but also his manner due to the war – Billy cannot control his behavior, and he also cannot control when and where he time travels.
One of the most meanigful lierary devices in Slaughterhouse Five occurs at the beginning of chapter 4 when Billy watches a war film in reverse. What is Vonnegut after with this excerpt?
When Billy watches the war movie backwards he sees most of the actions as actions of peace and this is quite symbolic in itself. It shows the conception of time and its linear placement in the book; the events of the book parallel events of the world meaning that Vonnegut is trying to show the importance of the linear succession of events, and how if put in a different order, it can drastically change the outcome. Vonnegut tries to say that we should want to do things the way the movie portrays the actions of wars BACKWARDS – we should be doing the exact opposite of what we should be doing. For example, the movie shows women taking apart bombs and then military men burying them in the ground, displaying the irony of how the events can drastically change when seen in reverse order.
The title of this book is sometimes referred to as "The Children's Crusade." Explain the meaning of this alternate name.
In Chapter 2 of Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut visits his comrade from the war, Bernard O'Hare at his home, asking for help on his new novel which he wishes to write. When he enters the house, he immediately feels unwelcome by O'Hares wife, who later reveals that she is angry for Vonnegut for choosing to write a war memoir because she was afraid that he was going to glorify war, as movie and books often do. She states, "You'll pretend that you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs" (14). This alerts to Vonnegut that, "It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies" (15). Vonnegut goes on to tell Mrs. O'Hare that he will call his book "The Children's Crusade," meaning that he does not wish to glorify or moralize war in any way. Vonnegut acknowledges that many of the men who go into war are not yet actually "men," and this encounter at the O'Hare's displays the negative impact World War II had on many people.
