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.