The Narrator's Acceptance of a Possible Afterlife - Siena H

Siena Hoaglund
American Studies 1/2 + 3/4
Ivory
1/1/16
The Narrator's Acceptance of a Possible Afterlife

On the second page of chapter 10, the narrator's voice seems to shift from third person to first person to talk about an interesting analogy about what Billy has learned from the Tralfamadorians, and to tell a story about one of the narrator's happiest moments. The analogy and the memory seem to suggest a continued human existence after death, that the narrator seems to have accepted as a possible afterlife.

In the chapter we learn from the narrator that "If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever...I am not overjoyed. Still- if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice." (Vonnegut, 211). Although the narrator is mostly likely Kurt Vonnegut, the speaker's identity is left unspoken. However, it is clear that the speaker is not pleased about revisiting memories after death, but some part of them still believes this to be a possible afterlife. They are able to accept that possibility, by reminding themselves that they have had mostly nice memories. The speaker then goes on to talk about their happiest memory, that they clearly wouldn't mind re-visiting.

Many authors, like Kurt Vonnegut, will change the point of view in their writing, to reflect on something that has happened in their story, as a way to reinforce a point in the reader's mind. A great example of this would be in the book Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. In this book the main character "R" has been turned into a zombie. Despite being dead, he gets to fall in love with living girl named Julie, who slowly turns him back into a human. The whole book is written in R's point of view, except for two paragraphs in the last chapter of the book, that talk in third person about the R's children. The narrator gives the children the full scale of emotions when they get to see their father again and their new step mother. The author added these two paragraphs to reinforce the point that R loved his family, and his love for family is what brought him back to life.

I wonder if Vonnegut added in the first person shift as a way to reinforce a point in his story like Isaac Marion did, or if was simple a way to explain the narrator's thought's about what Billy learned from the Tralfamadorians.