Free Will Exists!

When I first read Slaughterhouse Five I made a lot of connections between Billy Pilgrim and Forest Gump. They were both rather plain men who just had extraordinary things happen to them. Now I see that there is a big difference between them. Billy is mean to be a satire, a creature who doesn’t seem to care that he entirely lacks free will. During discussion we made a lot of connections between Billy and Meursault but I think that they are still different people. This is one of the few books that I have read this year where the author’s stance on morals is more clear than most. Vonnegut does not believe in war. He does want his children having anything to do with it. He thinks that people should do everything in their power to stop it. If there wasn’t a clear author point of view in the beginning and end it would still shine through in the text. Billy is unlikeable and lackadaisical. He is the opposite of solider thrown into a war and the lucky witness to many horrifying things which do not seem to faze him. The Trafalmadorians are toilet plungers which ignore everything bad which has ever happened and choose to focus on only good things. That is no way to live life. Even the crude rapper 50 Cent (Yes that is the name which goes by for his public persona) acknowledges that “sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain/ joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain.” Just like in Beloved the bad things in the past must be given equal acknowledgement so that they don’t happen again. Before I read the book I had no idea that Dresden was even a place, much less was I aware of the thing which happened there. Oh I knew all about Hiroshima and the concentration camps and everything else but I had never even heard of Dresden. My boyfriend was there today actually and his guide talked about the bombing and even mentioned Slaughterhouse Five. But most of the world still has no idea. I just re-read this post. It mostly has nothing to do with my big question. But that’s OK. I covered a few other things in my own rambling way.

If you can't control your circumstances are you still a bad person?

I would like to begin by saying that I liked Beloved. I think that reading a book and not being able to get past the shocking surface defeats the purpose of reading it. At times it was indeed a little gruesome but it added to the overall concept. I found it enchanting and I loved how twisted the story was, you never knew what you would discover next. With that, it also completely connected to my big blog question. Sethe believed that she was entirely justified in killing all of her children so that they would not have to suffer what she had. Everyone else did not believe so. It seems that a lot of the books that we are dealing with this year focus on a single, isolated character who has different beliefs than the rest of the society in which they live. That is essentially my question, can a person determine their own set of morals, or, do they have to adhere to society’s to be accepted? Sethe was entirely isolated after she tried to murder her children. Even until the very end she believed it was right. She refused to believe that Beloved was a malevolent spirit. So was Morrison trying to show that a person’s morals can become so warped that they are beyond help, like there are things that we simply cannot recover from? Or was she trying to show that a person’s experiences help in forming morals? Either way, Sethe seemed to have inflicted harm on more people than not. Is she a bad person or is it not her fault because she cannot control the experiences which made her that way? I personally think that most people are able to choose whether or not they make themselves a good person, but in some circumstances it is almost impossible to thrive and become a moral hero. Beloved raised many good questions. One of my main ones for much of the time I was reading it was “what the hell?” However, by the end I found that I had enjoyed the book and the many questions it raised.

Meursault, you are not lacking morals

I started out the stranger how I think most people started out the stranger. This is the absolute weirdest thing I have read in my life. Why is he so blunt? Why is the story told so oddly? How come he acts like this? However as the story and our discussions progressed, my jealousy of Meursault grew. I would like to be able to say exactly how I felt and feel however I wanted. He appears to disregard societal norms in terms of feeling but not in terms of behavior. Until he kills someone obviously. So does Meursault’s particular mindset make him appear to the rest of us as though he lacks morals? Or does he simply have his own set of twisted morals? He appears indifferent to his mother’s death, but he may simply have his own way of dealing with it. Perhaps chain smoking, sleeping, and drinking coffee with milk are simply his own particular way of grieving. Perhaps telling Marie that he does not love her, but consoling her that it does not matter is his way of being honest and trying to comfort her. His morals, obviously are different than those which society would normally assign to a person, but it is difficult to say that he lacks them entirely. So does society determine morality or does each individual and each separate situation determine a set of morals? Why do we think Meursault is so weird and is he really that different than us? I know I have been in situations where I know that I am supposed to be sad but don’t really feel sad. Yes great uncle whom I’ve never met, I am so sad at your funeral. But if I hadn’t at least appeared sad or somber my entire family would have thought I was crazy. Even though it is easy to understand why I would not be upset about the death of someone who had not had an impact on me whatsoever. And so Meursault, you appear to be an odd duck, however, I am a little jealous of your power.