Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Slaughterhouse Five
Here is your chance to interact with your classmates about the novel. First, be sure you have read the novel and remember it well enough to interact intelligently. The purpose of this blog is to prove you read and understood and considered the novel. You will need to not only make your own comments, but also to read and react to others' comments. To foster seminar-type interaction, we will choose some time slots for blogging. Check back for those times.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Seminar blog times:
ReplyDeleteTuesday from 6-8 p.m.
Saturday from 4-6 p.m.
Sunday from 1-3 p.m.
Sunday from 7-9 p.m.
In order to be considered "A" quality, you should read and respond to the blog for a one-hour time span.
Show what you know!!!!!
Is anyone on for the chat?
ReplyDeleteBtw this is megan.
ReplyDeleteI liked slaughter house 5.
And I wanted to get online and discuss whether or not Billy was crazy.
ReplyDeleteI think im gonna do my project on something dealing with that subject.
I personally do think he was rather crazy, considering that he thought he was a human exhibit in an alien zoo.
-megan
Not to get on a tangent or anythin but this book did kinda remind me of catch 22 in the sense that both books had a jumpy format. staughter house 5 jumped between time periods of the mans life, and catch 22 is jumpy to me because its so repetative. I sorta struggled through reading catch 22 cuz through parts of it i felt like i was re-reading and re-reading things. i breezed through slaughterhouse 5 though. i liked getting the extra information, kinda like an inside story, about the dresden bombing.
ReplyDelete-megan
good job blogging by yourself. I was at the Walmart and forgot to log on when I got back.
ReplyDeletehello this is destiny deHart.
ReplyDeleteso. i posted before Destiny! yey!
ReplyDelete-Aimee
Ashley says:
ReplyDeletethis book was very "jumpy", to coin megans term, and to someone who cant focus like me i was having a hard time deciphering between his time on Tralfamadore and his time in the war...the were very similar. Even to the point of what the peoples say and do..eerily similar. Which leads me to believe he is trying to make the war into a different reality than his.
... nevermind
ReplyDeleteill let aims ask the first question/coment
ReplyDeleteok its 1 is anyone on
ReplyDelete-megan
I agree in saying that Billy was crazy. He thought he was abducted and lived in an alien zoo? To me that screams help me!
ReplyDeleteAlso the jumping back and forth between time periods caught me off guard the first couple of times in the book, I found myself going back to re-read the point he was trying to get across. Although what I didnt like was how the auther ut "so it goes" i didnt know if he was beeing sarcastic in saying yeah thats what people said. or yes that how ir REALLY goes.
-Amanda Fenton
hi ashley.
ReplyDeleteAimee says: I think the jumpyness made it memorable. Though i don't know what you meant about the Tralfalmadore events and the war being similar. what do you mean?
Ashley exclaims:
ReplyDeletei was also conned into thinking i was reading a non-fiction book about the war and slaughters, when in actuality i was reading about a "crazy" man and his sexual escapades! darn you kurt vonnegut...
lol i disagree ashley about not bein able to decipher between the places, because the language is different. the tralfamadorians talked kind of more intelligently than the war people, and often during the war parts there was alot of mean language.
ReplyDelete-megan
This is Shannon. I believe that the book was organized to be "jumpy" to get the point across of how greatly the war effected him.
ReplyDeletedestiny-
ReplyDeletei though their were a lot of references to christ and i couldnt decide if it was to show how innisent he was as a child of the war
my mom says that one time she was abducted and lived in a zoo
anybody on
ReplyDeletepsh the book was not about sexual escapades lol. there was like 1 sex scene wasn't there? n it wasnt even graphic it was just about the tralfamadorians saying how its weird that humans reproduce with only 2 things instead of how they do it with 7.
ReplyDelete-megan
he had sex but i dont think huis "sexual escipades" detracted from the book- i also like to think that he is not crazy- just has a different perception - destiny
ReplyDeleteI think that the way he said "so it goes" after every death really showed the whole "tralfalmadore" viewpoint. That people die, there isn't anything we can do about it. Plus his crazy jumping through time was really how he dealt with what happened in the war. It's similar to how people with PTS deal with things, having vivid flashbacks ect.
ReplyDeletehe also had sex with his wife
ReplyDeletethat was aimee btw
ReplyDeleteI agree with Shannon.
ReplyDeleteIt had more emphasis on how greatly the war affected him mentally and physically.
The "jumps" created a more indepth look on how one thing could make him "unstuck" in time.
-Amanda Fenton
i agree with shannon, slaughterhouse, like catch 22 is jumpy to show the affect on war. The main characters of both books are probably crazy but for good reason, war affects you on many levels and the authors understood this
ReplyDeleteI dont think he said "so it goes" after every death, it was more of a passage to the next part of the story i feel.
ReplyDeleteand btw whoever that is dont forget to put ur name or u wont get credit
-megan
it deffinatly helped him cope with the enterity of the war. how he wasnt bodily equiped and didnt have the mindset
ReplyDeleteI did see alot of christ references. i think that was becasue christ is supposed to be a sheperd, a protecter of his flock. and by writing this book, vonnegut was protecting future children, from war and its horrors. I think thats also why its called the childrens crusade. -aimee
ReplyDeleteAshley explains:
ReplyDeleteOne of the German colonels, i believe, had said "Vy you? Vy anybody?" which is what the t-people said to billy as he first came on board to his question of, "why me?"
ok about johns comment on catch 22 not to tangent or anythin but the guy in catch 22 was obviously not crazy, he was just stuck in a catch 22. there were people in that book that were crazy, but not the main guy.
ReplyDelete-megan
Ashley continues:
ReplyDeleteand was made to strip naked as he was at the cleansing place.
if you forget your name its ok, just keep roling with it. he did say so it goes \after every death, even animals. anyone respond to my christ comment please? - destiny
ReplyDeletei thought the jumpy story structure allowed us to see things the way billy saw them. it was somewhat confusing, but made things more interesting and suspenseful. like how he would be crying in his hospital bed and then after the jump be crying from the cold wind in his eyes during the war.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't crazy by our standards. but think of the tiem that alot of these books were written. they didn't think of PTS as a medical condition. you were just crazy. so you got locked up in the looney bin.
ReplyDeleteashley i do agree that there were those similarites about what was said during the war like that and with the tralfamadorians. I feel like maybe thats were that craziness came from, random things that were said in the war. I dont understand how he thinks he jumps through time though.
ReplyDelete-megan
aimee i agree, ya know like a warning, the history will repeat itself and if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got
ReplyDeleteWow. It is really interesting of how whoever made the comment about so it goes and the tralfalmadore's and saying that it was their viewpoint. They looked at life's better moments. It almost seemed symbolic. When someone died they were only dead at that particular time. When you went to a different time or place they were not dead. That is almost how some people really do look at death. They can go back to a place and feel the same memories or look back on a time and feel a person who has died's presence.
ReplyDeleteShannon.
if he was the only sane one - in catch 22- then wouldnt it be riversed- crazy is, sane
ReplyDeletemegan, somethings you just shouldnt try to understand, if someones crazy then there is no reason to whatever their saying so don't try, take it at face value
ReplyDeleteshannon, or how someone is only dead here but is still alive in heaven
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeletei didnt mean that the sex was a main part of the story he just happens to not care about what he is saying and to who. And i am just trying to figure out their "intelligent speak" and the "war speak"
while that is important, face value it may mean something later and therefore important. crazy people often have the most intresting viewpoints because they are not limited by a "box"
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeletebut, john, if we dont try to understand things then where would any of these wonderful posts come from?
yea shannon, that's exactly what i meant. :) Oh and did anyone noptice the how he talked about blue and ivory really frequently, but at one point in the story he changed it? He switched to ivory and blue. I thought maybe it meant that he was closer to death at this point of the story, becasue you see blue as dead. and ivory as just sick... idk though. anyone elses thoughts?
ReplyDeletei agree with aimee.
ReplyDeletethe lack of order within the book made it more memorable.
I'm not a big reader, but this book was really interesting.
if it didn't have the jumps and it went in chronological order it would be anti climactic.
He would be in the war, have the big Dresden bombing, be an optometrist and be clinically insane because he thought he was abducted by Tralfamadorians.
Ashley shouts:
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU DESTINY! I AM NO LONGER CONFUSING!! CRAZY PEOPLE HAVE GREAT VIEWPOINTS!!
and since heaven is in the fourth dimention, it is still a part of us
ReplyDeletethere is a reason why his mind made up the alien philosophy that free will doesnt exist and that you can never change the events of time that are destined to happen. it is beacuse billy needed to cope and have his own reasonable explanation for why people would allow the horrors and tragedies of war.
ReplyDeletesome things yes do understand but other things i think vonnegut interjects to show just how crazy billy is, it may have meaning but its hard to think that every crazy saying or thought has some divine or in depth meaning ya know
ReplyDeleteShannon speaking:
ReplyDeleteTo ashleyyy, He doesn't really know his meaning in life and the war takes so much from him that he is apathetic to life. From the war his life is obviously completely changed. He says that in a time in his life he didn't even know his child. He doesn't know how to care I don't think because of the detrimental (idk if thats spelled right) effects the war has put on him.
i agree aimee about the blue and the ivory. did he ever really die though? cuz didn't he just keep jumping through time continually? or was that jus him bein crazy, and he did eventually die and none of that happen?
ReplyDelete-megan
jumping made the different parts, different times have more of a correlation, a sense that they all fit together no matter what even though some people experiance time in a "line" = emphisis on the t people
ReplyDeleteAshley agrees:
ReplyDeleteI agree with sarah s. the story would be very anti-climactic. He seems to have alot of pent up memories and just needs to get them on paper, which gives you the edge-of-your-seat feeling
I think my favorite part was when he died at his little speech thing. and how that wasn't the end of the book. it was like he was putting the emphasis not on billy's life but on the messages and symbols that were in his book.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Billy was "crazy" persay. I think he had PTSD or something. I'm not sure if he created the Tralfamadorians in his head or what, but it makes sense if he did after the war.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it was hard for me to follow because of how it jumped times. Don't get me wrong-it made it memorable-but VERY hard to decipher.
[And go figure...most of these comments are made at a different time than listed.]
-Kristen
i think the tralfamadorians had nothing to do with the war part because they didn't even really know about war untill billy brought it up when we was talking to them after a while. and how the US wars have nothing at all to do with the end of the world.
ReplyDelete-megan
[And it appears the time on the website is off by 3 hours.]
ReplyDeletedeath doesent matter to hime, he did die it was purple, but because all his life is at once his sole doesent die, then what is the importance of heaven?
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeleteThank you very much shannon. i kind of understand the point a little better...is he almost feeling sorry for himself? or is he just reminesciant? (sp?)
kristin, maybe your right, i didnt really think about it but maybe all the crazy things he says are just a coping mechanism like some other people said, i have just thought he was crazy through and through
ReplyDeletethey didnt care to know about the war that doesent mean they didnt have value in reference to it, like a coping mecanism
ReplyDeletei agree. i think the aliens were in his head, but i don't think he was crazy, just incapable of handling the situation he was in. this is where the free will thing comes in. he can never help himself, he is just plunged into situations ever since he was a kid. like when his dad threw him in the swimming pool and i wanted to stay at the bottom but was rescued.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe..... back on blue and ivory stuff, since he wasn't actually dieing and it was jsut his soul bouncing around betweeen events, maybe the blue and ivory is supossed to show the balance between life and death. just as he is never actually dead, he can never really be alive..... especially after the war.
ReplyDeletethis is sam- syke. hes a bum
ReplyDeletewords of the book: coping, PTSD, jumps, t-people, war, crazy, and opposites, is it what it seems or is their a deeper meaning, i know that sounds stupid but sometimes there is
ReplyDeletedestiny wut are u sayin about the importance of heaven since his soul didn't die? im confused, like are u tryin to say that he doesnt think heaven exists or no? because i dont really see how the fact that he dies but still goes around through time has anything to do wit heaven.
ReplyDelete-megan
i think the tralfamadorians represent his other point of view.
ReplyDeletethey are very scientific in the way they think instead of emotional like most people. Instead of religion they follow scientific ideas by Darwin. And how they didn't know about the war. I think it kinda is like PTSD like what Kristen said. He doesn't want to believe the war. How a lot of bad things happened.
Or maybe he was just crazy...
About the whole "so it goes. thing.
I love the way Shannon, John and Aimee explained it. Thats kinda how i saw it but you guys made it sound better.
way to go team
-Sarah S
their was so much symbolism its wack. oh1 and what was up with the dimond and teeth talking to him?
ReplyDeleteJohn, theres always a deeper meaning. in a book like this, that is protesting war and how it affects people and society, everything is a symbol.
ReplyDeletethis whole book is confusing
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeleteHe may have made the t-people up but i belive the events he went through there were real. thoughts?
Shannon speaking:
ReplyDeleteWow I really like the comment aimee just made about the blue and ivory. His life is indeed "fractured" and he is searching for meaning. His soul is not in his life but his body still is. And this could also explain blue and ivory. ????maybeeee....
aimee, whats the meaning, like what is the whole point of the book, the warning like you said? or what this whole book while interesting seems almost meaningless
ReplyDeleteAshley agrees:
ReplyDeletewith john. very confusing.
how did he know he was going to die though?
ReplyDeletei definately didn't think about the tralfamadorians bein his own point of view, i thought it was just like a random different part that was in the book. that makes sense though, like in his head his other point of view comes through as being explained to him through aliens. maybe that is saying that his own thoughts are confusing to him, and he is torn in what he believes and what he thinks?
ReplyDelete-megan
shannon, i think it does elplain it, i think the blue and ivory shows a dividing line in where he is, actually is
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeletei think the blue and ivory starting with his feet are symbolising everything he has "walked through" and has started to affect him whether he likes it or not.
Shannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how he knew exactly how he was gonna die. It's like something (the Tralfamadores) had a hold on his mind. It kind of made the point that he believed for life to be just a predictable cycle....
but I'd really like to hear what other people thought about this
I don't know what the diamond and teeth were supposed to mean destiny.... maybe something about value and the teeth might mean something about his future? or maybe how his future self helped his past self? OH WAIT!!!!!! it's about coping again. he used his experiences to help find the value in the war. which eventually he finds out there is none.
ReplyDeleteahley, true that
ReplyDeleteAshley to Destiny:
ReplyDeleteHe goes through "time warps". he has seen his own death.
maybe all the t-people and the events that happened with them are from ptsd? I don't know if hallucinations are a symptom of ptsd, but he sure did go through some really traumatic events.
ReplyDeleteTom C
but if hes crazy he wouldnt really kno. thats why i dont think hes crazy
ReplyDeleteI liked how in the beginning of the book he was talking about writing a book about war with his buddies and he was gonna call it the Children's Crusade (i think that's what he was gonna call it) instead of making it out to be all heroic. How they felt like little boys out there fighting like kids
ReplyDeletesarah s
Emily Manning says:
ReplyDeleteI think that Billy Pilgrim was just completely tramatized by the war. The book is filled with tangents that explain his perceptions.
The alien abduction is explained by other parts of his life. First, the science fiction books he reads have parts of the "alien aduction experience" within them. The actress he was with on the planet was featured in a magazine in a bookstore that he bought one of the books from.
It'S almost as if he died and then was able to jump around throughout his life in a sequence of relativity instead of chronology.
Ashley says:
ReplyDeleteLike i have said before, i do believe his time on the t-planet mirrored real events in his life. ptsd has probably warped it into this so he isnt really reliving the war, just going off onto a different planet.
John and Ashley, i think the meaning of the book was to talk about how war is terrible and hurts innocents. Here's a possibility, the T-people are like imaginary friends that billy uses to cope. it's a childrens crusade becasue it kills a little bit of the child inside everyone
ReplyDeleteTHat makes a lot of sense Emily
ReplyDeleteI have to agree...the alien world is probably his own view, in a way. I don't understand the time warp and the 7 species to create a new species and all that, thoguh I don't know if we're meant to understand it.
ReplyDeleteaimee that makes sense
ReplyDeletethis is a fictional book though, all of it is symbolic we only talk from it what we want to see, and try to apply then to our real world
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeletewhen at the very beginning with his war buddy, he says he cannot remember, yet he remembers what people said to him on the train and what he ate and other menial things. thoughts on how he remembers these things yet says he cannot remember anything?
Shannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteKristen,I think the 7 species thing was just to emphasize that their way of life was completely different from the way of life on earth.
to emily
ReplyDeleteyeah, i think the alien stuff was a compilation of his knowledge of aliens. we all see aliens as super smart, goofy lookin things. And then he saw the model who turned out to be his "mate."
its just a big dream for him.
Destiny,
How can you say he is not crazy.
please enlighten me... seriously :)
It does make sense for him to be hopping around according to relativity in his life instead of chronology, but that didn't make it any less confusing.
ReplyDeleteI think part of the confusing stuff is meant to add to the book. i mean, say someone read it and didn't stop to analyze it like we are. they would be left with these conceptions that war makes you a nut job and its terrible and full of death. then, when we analyze it we are getting the same things. it shows how good of a writer vonnegut is, that he can incorperate all these minute details into his work.
ReplyDeleteEmily says:
ReplyDeleteIt's a children's crusade because wars are faught by the children of those who start them in a sense and because the soldiers are SO young.
I think the organization of the book was the entire purpose. It is impossible to see so many people killed and to live a life with a sound mind. He was so traumatized that he feels that he has no purpose in life. He marries a woman he doesn't love, he doesn't feel the cold of his basement, he doesn't really know his son, he just copes; he adapts.
Ashley says:
ReplyDeleteyes aimee that makes sense...just trying to get a couple of questions answered...and stir up a discussion or two... XD
because he pridicted his own death,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think maybe the 7 species are a way to get thinking away form the human tangent, where here when we thing of reproduction, we think of man and woman having sex to reproduce. Where there it takes the 7 species to reproduce. Like Shannon said it was to just emphasize their way of life was different from ours.
ReplyDeletei dont think the tralfamadorians are supposed to be imaginary friends at all. they were probably either his view point liek everyone is saying or just a figment of his imagination. i do think its interesting, the children's crusades thing, because hes exactly right that often young kids are sent to war, like 18 yr olds and things, and it was worse when we had the draft, and how war kills the kid inside people because its so traumatic.
ReplyDelete-megan
Ashley, when he is saying he can't remember anything to write about, i think he means he can't think of anything to write that is worthwhile. there is nothing with any meaning to write about the war because war is meaningless. oh and i agree with destiny about billy not being crazy. i can see her point
ReplyDeleteAshley thinks:
ReplyDeleteHe could possibly think he is still a soldier and doing what he is told, or what could be the "right" thing to do...living through life on autopilot.
Ashley, maybe he remembers the small stuff but not the important stuff. Or maybe he doesn't want to remember the large things.
ReplyDeleteI kind of understand what you're saying Shannon but I don't know if I truly agree because while it's different from earth, that's already be identified and I don't think that that planet is real but rather, in his head.
And Sarah, I don't think he's crazy bc I'm pretty sure there's some kind of medical diagnosis, such as PTSD and such. The mind is amazing in the way that it can write over memories and it can...and will...cope in ways such as Billy did.
emily, i dont know if the soldiers are that young, maybe now when 8 yr olds are planting ied's but back in 69 soldiers are 18 at the youngest, thats not that young, i think its more to do with the fear that everyone has when they go into battle, you can be a rock or a hero, but you always have that childlike fear there with you
ReplyDeletei think the seven sexes were to show that our perception, even of ourselves is confined to what people have already determined.
ReplyDeleteShannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteI really really like the way that emily explained the children crusades thing by saying that it is the children who are sent to fight for war. VERY TRUE!!
Emily says...
ReplyDeleteNo, the tramalfadorians said that it took US seven to reproduce but that we didn't know it.
i'm still unclear about how he could predict his death. i don't think he died and then saw the aliens because he speaks about them on his radio broadcast. could it be the believe something so much that its actually happens-type of sitation?
ReplyDeletewell i don't mean imaginary friends as in the people little kids talk to when there four. but lots of times kids that experience trumatic events will create their own worlds our people that they use to comfort them or help them cope.
ReplyDeleteAshley to Megan:
ReplyDeleteI think they are supposed to be the friends he never had because of the war taking his childhood away.
Ashley to Aimee:
He says there is nothing to write worthwhile yet we are enraptured with this book, (whether we want to admit it or not.). It almost makes me think of the whiskey speech with how he says he really has no view, then continues to forge ahead and give us his views anyway...
to the people that say he's not crazy; if you have ptsd and you do crazy things whether to cope or some other reason your still crazy
ReplyDeletewhen people correlate children fighting they are sorroful for the loss of innosence,and think as each human as a being with a valuable life to loose, but when soildures die it is not really seen as a loss unless it is your soildure
ReplyDeletei did mentiion PTSD as a diagnosis before
ReplyDeletebut when not treated, it can make you crazy.
it messes with your mind... kinda sounds crazy to me
Emily says...
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't predict his death.
There is no chronological order. I think that he creates a future from his past in his head but walks through his real life.
thank you john
ReplyDeleteShannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteand kristen, yes I realize that its not an actual planet because this book is fiction.. but when asking why 7, it is to emphasize how different the "Tralfamadores" were and like dee said it is to show that we have certain perceptions that are confined to what we have already determined and the Tralfamadores were not anything that we could ever really grasp a meaning of.
i was talking abbout humans when i said seven sexes
ReplyDeleteim also unclear about the death thing russel, i think that he didnt PREDICT his death, but he did go through it, but was still "living" because he was still jumping through time, and went to a time different than his death. so like he died, but he didn't die, die, like go away..
ReplyDelete-megan
So I agree with aimee that the book was written to show the effects of war on innocent civilains, but I'd like to add while the T-people may be imaginary friends that Billy uses to get over the atrocities of war, the way they perceive the world is similar to how Vonnegut tells us about Billy.
ReplyDeletei agree with the whole "loss of innocence" (not innosence, haha)
ReplyDeletei was just starting conversation with the Children's Crusade
maybe throughout the story he uses what the t-people tell him about the fourth dimension time. maybe he writes the book as he sees it, it doesnt have to been in any order because their all happening over and over. it just depends on which one he focuses on at the time
ReplyDeleteAshley says:
ReplyDeletePTSD is not completely your excuse but i explains alot of things you do in your life. If you were getting shot at then taken to be a POW and then possibly tortured, would you come home perfectly sane and logical?
John, I have to disagree, to some respects. There are lots of coping methods considered "crazy", so to speak, [ex-most addictions] that don't make a lot of sense but if you met someone who dealt with something you wouldn't necessarily call them crazy, if that makes any sense. It wouldn't excuse that it wasn't right, but it wouldn't make them crazy. Granted, he created his own little world but even then...I have a hard time calling someone who's coping "crazy" no matter what their method is. It may not be a good coping method but it's not necessarily crazy.
ReplyDeletehe said "i will die at the end of this speech" then de dies
ReplyDeletemrs. Dehart says all of you are wrong and he's not crazy. Our perceptions are jsut limited. so :P
ReplyDeletewhich is what destiny said..
ReplyDeleteHere's a random thought:he's not crazy but on hallucagenic shrooms.
ReplyDeletehe might have been perfectly sane, but in the book he exhibits pretty much all the signs of being crazy heck he invents aliens
ReplyDeleteand now no one is posting anything. lol Aimee Destiny and Jake Win!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteTom that makes so much sense, Vonnegut was hi
ReplyDeleteAshley exclaims:
ReplyDeleteyes tom! that is the solution to all of these problems! shrooms!
I am confused on the limited-perceptions thing [I mean, they are but, how so?]
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think he's crazy but I don't think he quite knows what's going on or, rather, understands it, in some parts.
to destiny: that could have been a coincidence. crazy people can be paranoid and think they are gonna die all the time. He just happened to actually die.
ReplyDeleteone BIG coincidence
to kristen: touche
I know, that was long thought out thesis. :)
ReplyDeleteok jake. It is fiction. So if he wasn't crazy, could he really have been taken by the T-people and them be used as a symbol by vonnegut as opposed to a coping mechanism.
ReplyDeleteAshley questions:
ReplyDeleteare aimee destiny and jake on the same computer? cuz ashley believes she has been posting the whole time! Crazy people...
im leaving, good bye
ReplyDeletejohn the aliens werent necessarily invented they could have represented his point of view. or like ashley said, took the place of friends that he didn't have cuz he lost his childhood innocense during the war. he definately wasn't crazy.
ReplyDelete-megan
Shannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh tom. You really just took my words from me. I was thinking about him taking morphine. And I'm pretty sure that makes you hallucinate. When he took a shot of morphine he may have been taken into the world with the "Tralfamadores" causing him to hallucinate.
okay. two oclock. one hour down. :) i'm done.
ReplyDeletekristen, limited cause we can't see in 4D maybe...
ReplyDeleteAshley to Tom:
ReplyDeleteIm sure it was...it was your thesis. ;)
props for karl
ReplyDeleteDestiny and I thank you Karl good point
ReplyDeleteShannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteHaahahhaha karl. Good one.
so if the aliens werent invented does that make them real?
ReplyDeletemegan: if the t-people represented his point of view, like i also mentioned earlier, then they were invented as a symptom of being crazy.
ReplyDeleteAshley to All Her Peeps!:
ReplyDeleteIm outta here...got to have a texting discussion about this more with megan! haha have fun everybody!
Karl, I understand that it's in 4D but he didn't see in 4D the Tralfamadorians did. It even said that...he couldn't see 4D, only the alien people.
ReplyDeleteAshley continues:
ReplyDeleteOh and thank you all for the wonderful discussions we had. til next time!
Yes, john, I think they were real. I think the V-guy ususe them to show the reader how he believe actions and consequences should be veiwed in the world
ReplyDeleteone hour = done
ReplyDeletewell i dont think he was crazy or that the aliens were invented, i think billy had the aliens as a point of view that we could understand. just a part of the story to give it demention. they were representative, but i do not think they were anythin dealing with him being crazy.
ReplyDelete-megan
and yah its 2 so im done
ReplyDeletenice discussion
-megan
Kristen, I was thinking they told him what was gonna happen to him, so while he may not have actually seen, like a blind person, he was told where the things sround him were
ReplyDeletethis is Sam I dont think anyone else is on right now but I don't realy care.
ReplyDeleteI think that the guy who wrote this book had a sort of flawed perception of the fourth dementions or dementions as a whole. you see the fourth demention is connected with the others, which is why in science it is reffered to as time-space.
I partially agree with megan. I think they were a symbol to aid in the coveyance of the major theme, not a figmeant of his imagination, crazy or sane
ReplyDeletesam nevermind its display time is wrong on my computer.....
ReplyDeleteKarl, I'm not so sure I understand what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteSam, Im on. the time stamp is wrong. It says the last post was 11:08 but I just put it up.
ReplyDeleteSam, I don't know if we can ever quite understand 4D seeing as we can't see it. Granted, with YOUR mind... ;)
ReplyDeleteShannon speaks:
ReplyDeleteAlright I'm outta this.
I think that he could still be unconcious in the hospital and his comatose state could be creating memories that have replaced his old ones whill still shifting through reall memories.... I have been told that someone in a coma dreams that they die.
ReplyDeleteyeah, i don't undestand that either, karl. thinking like that is more out of the context of the plot dont you think
ReplyDeleteAbout the 4D thing: I was thinking he speant alot of time on the planet, in t he "zoo" and the aliens seeing him in 4D could have informed him of his fate.
ReplyDeleteIn general: Vonnegut uses the T-people to advance the theme that we, as humans, need to try to see in 4D when we decide to do things, like war, in order to percieve their effects on our future as well as their cause from our past.
Emily said:
ReplyDeleteI could definitely see that Karl, except for that the bits and peices of the Tramalfadorian world are explained throughout parts of his life on Earth.
Then there is this question: In one part of the book, he cheats on his wife after getting drunk and he says that this was the only time, so he doesn't consider his life with the aliens as part of his life.
Good point Sam. I've heard similar.
ReplyDeleteyeah i think my idea covers everything
ReplyDeleteEmily said...
ReplyDeleteKarl, the 4D explanation makes sense. I hadn't thought of that.
Eh, I'm not sure if it covers EVERYTHING but a deal of it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm not sure when this story is being told...in the present, looking back at the past, or what.
I'd think that it would be more of a burden to see in 4d then in 3d, i mean think about it would YOU like to see everything that was going to happen or every state everything in your view was ever in and will ever be in? Just thinking about it almost gives me sensory overload!
ReplyDeleteBut Karl...we already try to see the effects in the future. Whether that works or not is another story.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Emily and Sam. Though, emily he refers to his time spent on the T-planet multiple times as if it was part of his life, not specifically but when he talks about it he talks like its real. and that may have been because he doesn't consider it cheating, or the chronology of the quotes is not linear
ReplyDeleteto Kristen
ReplyDeleteWhat specifically does it not cover?
Emily:
ReplyDeleteyes, but do we consider WHO it will affect?
Sam, it gives you sensory overload because you don't have the fourth sense.
It's told in the past.
The story is about a made up character that was with the author during the war. Basically, the author felt these things but decided to personify the emotions through another character.
with karls comment
ReplyDeleteyeah the cheating thing, i think that he had a mindset like Odyseus did when he was on the island(s) with the godess(es)
Sam: The aliens themselves.
ReplyDeleteSam: good point about the overload
ReplyDeleteKristen: I agree. We tend to fail a good deal of the time tho. War happens even when we know it isn't necessary. People cheat on their spouses knowing the consequences. To tie sam's idea to this, maybe overwhelmed by emotion as we are, our 4D is blinded
to emily
ReplyDeleteyes but there are some humens who have mental dis-capabillities who have sensory overload with the sences that we have so...
Emily:
ReplyDeleteI know that he REALLY thinks that it's part of his life, but I just thought that that was interesting.
I agree with karl's statement and also i think the aliens had a point (with karl's point) they said that earth was the only place where there was talk of free will, so maybe our ideas of "we want to" get in the way.
ReplyDeleteEmily: I agree it is interesting. I like sam's odysseus explanation to tho.
ReplyDeleteEmily:
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point. Maybe what is to happen will happen no matter what we decide, but then why write a book to influence ideas?
the idea of the book therefor is used to comfort the idea and to reduce the "OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS GOING TO END AND WE NEED TO STOP IT" syndrom and help them relize that there is nothing that we/they can do
ReplyDeleteEmily:
ReplyDeleteBut not if the book is anit-war.
Don't you think that the book's purpose was to show the detremental effects of war?
All right guys...I'm out...it's 2:35.
ReplyDeleteI agree with sam's point, the earlier and the recent. That "free will" they speak of, found only here, is what vonnegut tries to appeal to the reader with a different look at how to prevent war; If we minipulated emotions less and focused more on how the T-people see how things WILL play out, maybe we'd be better off
ReplyDeleteso yeah and things realy can't exist only in the fourth demention, for something to exist in one demention they have to occupy all prior dementions as well.
ReplyDeleteEmily:
ReplyDeleteI agreee!!!
Well, one hour.
Bye guys!
Sort of emily. I think it shows the detremental experience of war and combines it with the contrasting image of a society that knows what will happen so it has no need for war. Our emotions like fear, chaos, and greed fuel wars. When we manipulate those emotions, facts that would not lead to war,do. and a clear prediction of the future, like the 4D vision of the T-people, is lost to bloodlust
ReplyDeleteright because what we want, or "free will" get in the way of what we actually already know that we should do.
ReplyDeleteExactly. So does that make the book a "catch 22". Eliminate "free will", no more war; but to eliminate free will and be any less than a God you would envoke uprisings and chaos fueling more war?
ReplyDeleteyup an excellent example, but also, the galaxy ended, not as a result of war, but of probuction and engineering. So it is.
ReplyDeleteVery tru. Im gonna go build an igloo. I may be back on around 7 to finish this up
ReplyDeleteright so am i the only one on now??
ReplyDeleteThis book gave me an ironic view of the World War 2 from beginning to end. Billy's life could not have been worse it is no small wonder that he went insane or sane from his point of view. I liked the tralmalfdorians and how tie doesn't really exist things just are or the aren't. There answer for everything is "so it goes" beause to tem it does not matter who, what, where, and how, to them there is just "is". So it goes.
ReplyDeleteThe tralmalfadorians didn't eliminate free will. You see they just did what they did simply because things just are. No matter what happens
ReplyDelete