War's Prozac

You may wonder why Prozac is part of the title of this blog. Prozac is a common antidepressant that is consumed by many. Billy's Prozac were all his joyous moments, which were unfortunately not many. Why were these moments so scarce? Well, because Billy spent a great part of his life fighting in war.

This was also discussed in a previous blog entry, but now we can confirm it. The Tralfamadorians taught Billy to ignore the unhappy moments of life and just focus on the happy ones. How can someone live like this? By doing this you are simply creating and enclosing yourself in a bubble, meaning that there is little to no contact with the outside world or reality. Billy learned to ignore the horrors of war, which allowed him to accept it. At times, he remembered the moment in which he witnessed the suffering of horses and began to cry. This is only a small proportion of all the agony that comes with war. If war causes pain, why do so many people support it?


People believe that war is the only way to fight for your beliefs and stand up for the rights of people in a country. However, what about the rights of the people that are in the losing country? Do they not deserve the same rights? Is it fair for them to die severely? War only brings environmental damage, mass destruction, financial debt, death, and tensions between countries. There are many other ways to prove your point or to get across your ideas that do not involve violence or the killing of thousands of innocent people.

Excuses, Excuses

Now, we all know that Aliens do not exist. Well, we are not absolutely positive but I suppose we all have a pretty good reasons for believing that they do not. We, as readers, know that the experiences with the Tralfamadorians are all in Billy's imagination and most of us have concluded that Billy is completely insane, as I discussed in a previous blog. However, think about it, what is Billy was afraid to express what he truly believed in and he therefore chose to express his ideas with this unrealistic world?

Billy's experiences with the Tralfamadorians propose an alternate reality, which for some people may be considered as a utopia. This might just be Billy's utopia and the way that he believes that human's should live. Yet again, I doubt that Billy would believe that by narrating an experience with aliens, he would convince everyone of what the correct way of living would be. Well, it's just a possibility.

The Tralfamadorians encounters with Billy may also be reassuring to Billy. What I mean by this is that the Tralfamadorians may be Billy's alter-ego that provide comfort and happiness to him. Sigmund Freud once said that escaping reality and going into an unrealistic world is one of the ways to seek and feel pleasure. Tralfamadore may be Billy's alternate universe where misery does not exist. Is it possible that our main character has not gone completely insane and is actually an ordinary man seeking happiness?

Death As We Know It

Death is certainly one of those things that cannot be avoided and in chapter 5 we can notice that the Tralfamadorians also agree. I agree with Yvette, death is just one of those things that has to be accepted and no one can avoid it. We each have our own destiny and we can't change it, no matter what. We can see this in the story of the servant who saw death and died while attempting to escape from it.

Many people fear death because they don't know what will happen to their soul or body. Another reason behind fearing death is that people are afraid to leave their loved ones. Tralfamadorians believe that this fear of death is very "earthling." By earthling I mean that this is a fear that is very common amongst human beings and I cannot agree more.


Despite this, Tralfamadorians believe that not only death, but that everything in life is absolutely inevitable and that things are basically bound to happen. I agree with Yvette by disagreeing with the Tralfamadorians because there are certain aspects of our life that we can change. Sure, we cannot change death because it is a manner that is completely out of our hands, but we can change our job opportunities, relationships, etc. The Tralfamadorians in a way believe that they are hopeless concerning change. Imagine what would happen to us if we believed this, would we be prosperous? Would we strive to become successful? Would this be positive or negative?  

A Soldier Frozen In Time

I am clearly not a psychiatrist but I have had many experiences with characters in books that are mentally ill. The reader does not realise immediately that the character is suffering from a mental disorder and also loses sense of what reality is in the book. In slaughterhouse five we ca observe this with Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim may be suffering from a severe mental disorder called Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, which results from psychological trauma.

Billy has witnessed extreme pain and suffering because of the war. In fact, as is mentioned in the book, Billy was present in one of Europe's greatest massacres, the bombing of Dresden. Imagine the impact that this may have had on Billy. Seeing all those people killed, families slowly disintegrating, and simply all the horrible emotions that came with war. This must have scarred Billy for life, causing him Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This would explain why Billy has no sense of reality and can travel back in time. We all know that sure one day this may be possible, but that for now travelling in time is not an option. One of the symptoms of PTSD is a loss of interest in activities and life in general, which is actually occurring to Billy in the book. Billy and Rosewater have both lost interest in life as is observed in the following phrases: "Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war." (p. 101)  

Besides this, Vonnegut also mentions repeatedly that Billy is or was in a mental institution as a patient. We don't know if Billy is in the mental institution in the present or if this occurred early in his life. Could our main character, Billy Pilgrim, be in a mental hospital because of PTSD?