Slaughterhouse-five Ch.1: Is This The Start Or The End Of The Infinity

What most got into my mind after reading the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-five is that Kurt Vonnegut will play a lot with time. He constantly goes back to the memories of the war and tells the story as if there was no beginning and no end. “All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.”(Slaughterhouse-five pg.1) Even from the beginning of the novel he already plays with the certainty of time and events in the main character’s memory. He also incorporates one song on this chapter that is a song that keeps on going infinitely. Kurt Vonnegut might have put this song in his chapter to foreshadow to us that his novel will be like an infinity loop going from past to present to future. When I think of something infinite it is mostly not material because material objects will eventually be damaged or lost. I think instead of some teaching or lesson that stays with humankind for eternity. Any teaching that has been passed from generation to generation over a period of time will always be kept. It is like the talking they did to the kids while they slept in the book A Brave New World. They grew to be old and eventually never forgot the lessons they were taught while asleep.

While reading this chapter I realized that the main character said several times that he was old and couldn’t remember all his memories anymore. “I’m an old fart with his memories.”(Slaughterhouse-five pg. 7) When he said this it made think of Ishmael. Ishmael said that human kind thinks that there are eternally flawed. Since the main character repeated that phrase several times it made me think that he is saying that he is flawed and will have a hard time remembering the things that happened during the war. “People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.”(Slaughterhouse-five pg.22) This also expresses a flaw that human kind can have that is to forget easily the things we are not supposed to forget and to forget easily the ones we have to be able to forget. Humankind has to be able to remember the past to be able to avoid doing the mistakes that were done in the past. When one has to forget easily is harder to forget and it is partly because you have feelings involved. For example if you want to have revenge on one person because he did something you did not like you will tend to not forget this until you fulfill your goal that is to take revenge. Another example is when one has had a relationship with someone and you will never forget that relation even if you have millions after that one. Kurt Vonnegut might have included these flaws when introducing and describing the actions of the main character to show the reader that he is also human and has flaws like everyone else.