Sunday, May 4, 2008
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.
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.
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