Kurt Vonnegut's Reaction to Emotional Pain -Siena H

Siena Hoaglund
American Studies English
B-Day 1/2 + 3/4
Ivory
12/14/15

"Kurt Vonnegut's Reaction to Emotional Pain"

In Chapter 3, the author's personal feelings towards pain is easily seen through the time traveling of Billy. Every time Billy is put in a dangerous, painful, or scary situation; he time travels. Almost as a way to avoid the pain that is to come.

When Billy is captured and forced to give his shoes to the Germans, he time travels right after the Americans are brought into a house full of other captives. If this is looked at by the author's point of view, it shows that Vonnegut knew that being captured was a painful memory for him, as he was captured by the Germans once himself. So he avoids the memory by making his main character time travel to an eye exam. Vonnegut avoids many painful memories this way. Billy time travels before Vonnegut can go into detail about when the Germans make the Americans march in the snow, when the captives entered Germany, and when the trains, they are forced into, start moving eastward.

The last sentence of chapter 3 states, "Somewhere in there was Christmas. Billy Pilgrim...fell asleep, and he traveled in time to 1967 again-to the night he was kidnapped by a flying saucer from Tralfamadore." (Vonnegut,71). In my opinion, it would seem as if Vonnegut was pained to think that American soldiers spent their Christmas inside of a train cart. So he decided to write about Billy time traveling to when he is kidnapped to Tralfamadore, instead of going in depth about the pain a American solider, like the character Billy, would feel spending Christmas as one of the captured.

This method of avoiding pain, reminded me of the last chapter of Night by Ellie Wiesel. In the last chapter, Wiesel stops talking about what happens during his time in the Consecration Camp, because of his father's death. Wiesel says that he believed it was because, after his father died, he became very dehumanized. However, I always thought it was because Wiesel didn't want to remember the pain he felt after losing his father.

I am curious to see if this pattern will continue throughout the novel Slaughterhouse Five, and if Vonnegut will ever admit, somehow, that in his book he talks about time travel and aliens, as a way to avoid talking about his pain. Does Vonnegut really avoid certain memories because they make him feel pain, or is there going to be a greater reason for the convenient time traveling, shown later in the book?

Example Posts - Meets and Exceeds

The following are two posts that may serve as models for your own. These posts use The Grapes of Wrath as the considered text, but the requirements are the same. The first is an example of a post that MEETS the standard; the second is an example that EXCEEDS the standard.

Meets:

It became apparent in chapter 5 that the narrative of the Joad family is only one perspective of the struggles people faced in the 1930s. The use of racial slurs and culturally insensitive language reminds us that the Joads, although they are a poor family lacking many basic resources, they do have the privilege of being white. The use of the word "nigger" and the highly insensitive way of speaking about Native Americans remind us that whiteness was a privilege that could elevate the status of even the most desperate farmer.

I wonder how this theme of race and culture will continue to develop over the course of the novel. What will the presence of race and racism continue to teach us about the social fabric of the U.S. in the '30s?

Exceeds:

The description of the land in Chapter 5 tells us a lot about the tensions arising out of the industrialization of farming. The physical connection to the land is broken, and this seems to lead to a bigger gap that transcends the physical.

In chapter 5, we learn that the tractor driver "could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth...Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses" (35, 36).

Humans are being replaced by machines, and these machines will never love and appreciate the land (and what the land provides) as much as the humans who farmed it with their own hands. I am curious to see how this theme continues to play out in the novel - will the divide between the human and the machine continue to grow, and will it cause the farmers' struggle to become increasingly bitter and devastating?

Notes:

• Please consider your grammar and spelling. These posts should be thoughtful and well-crafted. 
• As you can see, the posts need not be long. A few sentences, or a small paragraph or two is sufficient. Remember - quality over quantity! 
• Please title your post purposefully - your title should help give a heads-up about the content of your post.