In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy's experiences on Tralfamadore as a method for Billy to relive his war experiences without the shame and horror he lived through while he was a prisoner of war, while also giving Billy a new philosophy to cope with his guilt of surviving.
By giving Billy a chance to relive his unpleasant experiences in his safe Tralfamadore fantasy, he is able to confront his traumatic war memories and grow from them. One of the first things Billy is asked to do when he arrives at the prison camp is remove his clothes. When the Germans see him undressed, they call him a weakling. Further on in the book, Billy does not have any boots so he uses silver ones from a Cinderella play. When he walks to slaughterhouse-five wearing a ridiculous jacket given to him by the Germans and the silver Cinderella boots, he is gawked at by people who see him. When Billy is taken by the Tralfamadorians, one of the first things they ask him to do is remove his clothes, just like at the prison camp. However, Billy ends up spending the entirety of his time on Tralfamadore naked. The Tralfamadorians had no way of knowing that Billy's face and body were average, so they thought he was a "splendid specimen." Because Billy is praised for his body instead of demoralized, he "began to enjoy his body for the first time." This shows that Tralfamadore helped Billy come to terms with his war experiences.
The Tralfamadorian theory of time helps Billy to deal with his guilt of surviving the war. The Tralfamadorians see all time at the same time. One of them compares how they see time to how humans might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. They teach Billy that there is no way to change the results of any events and there is no such thing as free will. In a review, Susan Lardner states "The hypothetical consequence of such a mode of perception is the ability to focus exclusively on pleasant moments and to be indifferent to the unpleasant ones." This helps Billy cope with his guilt and accept his traumatic war memories by making it seem as if he did not have a choice in anything that happened to him. It comforted him to know he could not have been able to change the outcome of his life even if he wanted to, so he should not dwell on the sadder parts of his life.
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." |