The Tralfamadorian Philosophy In Slaughterhouse-five By Kurt Vonnegut
It was difficult for Americans to return to normal life after the Second World War. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five. One of the soldiers was Billy. Billy was so affected that in the book, he says that an alien race called the Tralfamadorians kidnapped him. Billy, who is influenced by Tralfamadorian beliefs, loses some of his mind. He rejects free will and fantasizes death.
Billy was forty-four when he arrived on Tralfamadore. Tralfamadore (also known as Tralfamadorians) is the fictional alien world in Slaughterhouse 5 which is trillions, trillions of kilometers away from Earth. Billy lives on Tralfamadore in a specially-designed zoo that is meant to mimic a home. All Tralfamadorians will be able to view him. He is asked questions by the Tralfamadorians and goes on with his daily routine. Tralfamadorians explain to him how they view death and ‘being untied in time.’ They see death as a temporary bad situation in a person’s life, but they believe that the person was fine at other times. When they see a dead body, they say “So it is”. Billy has a similar view of death, and “So it went” is frequently used throughout the novel whenever death or dying is discussed. Billy is brought to Tralfamadore by the Tralfamadorians after a while. They bring a girl, Montana Wildhack. She will mate Billy with. Billy’s ability to travel in time shows that the two did have a child. Billy wonders why he was chosen to be captured and Tralfamadorians reply that there is no reason. Billy is told by the aliens that there is no free will on Earth. It is absurd to believe in it. Billy is told that, on their world, he has to be caught every second of his entire life. The beings describe being trapped in a moment as being like a bug in amber. Moments will not stop until a person is dead.
Billy realizes that the Tralfamadorians were right when they told him there is no such thing as free will. He realizes that there are always moments, and people are trapped in the present moment. Billy knows that he cannot stop the flow of life, so he becomes calmer and stops fighting it. He believes that he can predict his death and the assassination of himself, but does not care. It’s because this is what he learned in Tralfamadore. Billy repeats this phrase to remind himself that all things happen for a purpose. Montana Wildhack’s necklace displays this phrase, which Billy is reminded by when he sees Montana.
Billy, while a Tralfamadorian prisoner and aboard a spaceship, contemplates the idea of human free will. If humans were to have this, conflict would be avoided. The Tralfamadorians’ teachings have changed his mind about war and other forms of conflict. After watching the firebombings of Dresden, he feels that such acts must be prevented. No one should ever want to use a human as a pawn in waging war. In Slaughterhouse-Five many of the characters have no free will, while those who do are sadistic. Roland Weary is one example. He believes he has a strong fighting style and uses torture to kill others. Weary is often mocking Billy, who was actually abandoned by soldiers more experienced than he.
Billy simply accepts the fact that Weary dies in war. Billy has become accustomed to Tralfamadorian ways of thinking, and no longer feels sorrow for the death of a loved one on Earth. Tralfamadorians do not consider death to be a significant event because they can go back in time and see themselves at any point. Billy also has the ability to travel backwards and forwards in time just like Tralfamadorians. Billy knows what he is going to die, but he is not concerned. Tralfamadorians taught him to not be afraid of death. Tralfamadorians respond to death with “so what”. Billy’s speaks to make his ideas clear. He says, “The biggest thing I learned from Tralfamadore: that a dead person is only a ghost.” The past is not dead to him… He’s still very alive. All moments past, present, or future always existed, and always will. They keep saying to look only at the wonderful things in life.
There is chaos and conflict even when life seems beautiful. Billy tells Tralfamadorians about the Earth’s wars and how dangerous humans are to all of life. Tralfamadorians see his fears as incompetent since they know the way that the world will end and it’s not humans. Tralfamadorians never think that humans would be so primitive as to go into war. Billy’s overestimation of human significance in the Universe and his simple-mindedness is the reason for this. He is adamant about his freedom of choice and fails in realizing that wars, destruction, and death are inevitable.
Billy’s Tralfamadorian Dreams help him cope with his death experiences, since death has no meaning to them. Billy’s Tralfamadorian Dreams are like morphine, which he took after he lost control in a German POW camp. They make him adapt to injuries. Billy’s wartime memories are constantly brought up because he can’t ignore them. They have had a profound impact on him. Billy is taught nothing by the Tralfamadorians about time. He is told that time does not have boundaries, limits or linearity. The time is what it is. It is not possible to run away or escape it. Tralfamadorians are able to see the future and can therefore predict all events.
Billy finds the Tralfamadorians’ reasoning to be more rational and reasonable than that of humans, yet their body shapes and colors make them seem almost comical. Tralfamadorians even sound like German guards Billy had to deal with as a prisoner. The Tralfamadorians sound suspiciously like the German guards that severely beat an American POW and say, “Vy-You?” Vy Anyone?’ They also ask, “Why You?” Why us? Billy asks “Why us?” and then, “Why anything?” Nothing happens for a reason. Even though they know the end of the Universe, they do not stop it. The Tralfamadorians tell Billy that they don’t look at the future. He is told to just look back at happy memories. Billy is a fluid person who sees the world as a continuous flow. Billy doesn’t care if time passes fast, because he is able to appear at any moment he chooses. Billy uses the ability to cope when he remembers the events in Dresden from so long ago.
Billy is often stuck in the past when he tries to be like Tralfamadorians and see everything in all directions. He creates Tralfamadorians to stop him losing his wits, but that doesn’t seem to work. Billy can’t forget Dresden and sees images of it in his mind. Billy’s philosophy from Tralfamadore has made him ready to die by the end of his lifetime. Because he believes that there is no free will while he remains in the prison, he completely abandons any hope of ever having it. He is so affected by death that he does not even realize it. It is the happy times that he remembers, not the conflict. Moments are moving by without him being able to stop them. Billy, after being kidnapped by Tralfamadore and brought there, was less of an active human being.
