Paradox

The meaning behind this is so deep.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgement, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, but not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space, but not inner space. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of quick trips and disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. Remember to give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the thoughts in your mind.

I thought I might interrupt the other chapters by telling you HOW Vonnegut shows these meanings and how he ridicules the ideas of free will, fate, and time.

For one thing, the story of Billy under the control of aliens reveals lack of free will. [As the example in when they make Billy have sex with the actress] These aliens can represent a lot of different things, ranging from God or the government. The lack of ability to stop his death when he knows it's going to happen show that he is submitting to his fate. The story of him traveling backwards and forwards between the past, some time that does not exist, and the present time also shows how time matters very little. Like the story of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Vonnegut shows how fate and time run in patterns of circles. There is no free will when there is things such as fate and destiny which control it. There is merely the idea of free will. And despite the tone of the narrator, these deeper meanings are beneath the criticism and mocking tone.

Chapter 6

Billy wakes up in his prison bed and finds two "magical" lumps in the lining of his coat. He fast forwards to a time where China had dropped a hydrogen bomb in Chicago and the United States became divided into twenty nations to prevent it from taking over the world. He makes a speech in which he knows he is going to die. When he ends his speech with "Farewell, hello, farewell, hello", Billy is shot be a laser gun.

Although everything that was told in the chapter is meant to have readers question what they can believe and trust, everything has their truths to it despite its craziness. The United States has become a world power which does not contribute to production but consumption. All that we fear in the present has happened in the novel. We are afraid, or at least told to be afraid, of China or Korea bombing us. We should be afraid of division among the country. As it all happens, Billy feels nothingness, even as he dies. It seems mechanical and things that Billy has the ability to feel for, he shies away from. Vonnegut seems to show that things that there are so many things that have contributed the race of humans to be mechanical. You wake up and go to work, come home and sleep and restart the entire cycle. It's not like you're actually living life, rather life has become a daily task which you are programmed to live through.

Chapter 5

The Tralfamadore, who are the group of aliens who kidnap Billy, knows how the world will end. Again, this is just like One Hundred Years of Solitude. The gypsy knows how the story of Macondo and the Buendia family will end. However he does nothing to help change their fate like Tralfamadore. They tell Billy that they are at war and the universe will end when one of their pilots accidentally blow up. They state that war is something that can not be prevented.

Meanwhile, Billy is transported back and forth into time. He visits childhood memories mixed with some war memories. He is in a mental hospital and he realizes that life is meaningless, which he also displayed in the first chapter. The Tralfamadore gives an actress to be Billy's mate. The hospital tells his daughter, Barbara, also that he is insane and she takes him home.

As I was reading this chapter, I was consistently questioning the reality. Which is real? The Tralfamadore or that Billy is insane? As a reader, I'm sure that everyone would be convinced that the idea that Billy is insane is more realistic. However as a reader also, you can see the truth that Tralfamadore represents.

The Tralfamadore shows a world without free will. They empathize that free will is a joke, some mythological thing that human beings have created and believe in [like God] when in reality, there is no such thing that exists. By empathizing this, the message shows that free will is important although often lost. It got me thinking that what if we don't really have free will? Sometimes it seems that people we put in power are controlling us. Although we might fight against wars that presidents create and high prices of gases that big CEOs impose, we are almost demanded to take it out of necessity. We HAVE to pay those high prices. We HAVE to pay these taxes which in the end, fund a war we don't want. These minor things all seem to be fate. These minor things questions our free will. Do we really have it if we're consistently condemned to follow something we seemingly have no control over?

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

On Billy's daughter's wedding night, Billy spends the night watching a documentary over and over again. Everything goes forward then backwards in the documentary. Such as bullets that had at one point hit a man, reversed back. As he is watching this drunk, he imagines Hitler becoming a baby and all of humanity works toward creating two perfect people named Adam and Eve. Before this he knew that he was going to be kidnapped by aliens and soon afterwards, he is. On the spaceship, he travels back in time where he is again in Germany. During the trip, a man dies in another cart while telling everyone that Billy is responsible. Billy is transported back into time when he was a child then forward when he is a middle aged man playing golf.

The entire chapter seemed to remind me of One Hundred Years of Solitude. This is because in chapter 3, a voice comments that only on earth is there free will. Ironically, the entire chapter shows that there is no free will. The way time works in the chapter also reveals Vonnegut's belief in fate and how it must be followed through. Billy's death is marked already, like the fate of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Billy's lack of thinking past "Why is this happening to me", also reveals that humans are selfish and limited creatures. Vonnegut shows that humans are consistently worried about themselves and what effects them directly, rather than the world overall. They don't question the "bigger things" but rather piety things that in the grand scheme of things, don't matter what so ever.