The narrator of this book is a subject that has been continuously questioned in the class and in my mind. In the first chapter I thought it was Kurt Vonnegut then in the second one it was a mix between Billy Pilgrim in third person and in first person. It has all been confusion until in this chapter there are some clues that can help you make a decision on who is the narrator. "Billy closed that one eye, saw in his memory of the future poor old Edgar Derby in front of a firing squad in the ruins of Dresden" (Slaughterhouse-five pg 105). Over here I could see that there were clearly two Billy Pilgrims in the book. In the discussion we had today in class my final conclusion was that there were three different narrators. One was Kurt Vonnegut, the other one was Billy Pilgrim in third person and Billy Pilgrim in first person. The main differences that can be seen between the three characters are that all are different but are the same because they narrate the same story. One of the few times I have seen Kurt Vonnegut being mentioned was in this chapter when Billy Pilgrim said: "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book" (Slaughterhouse-five pg 125). This is when I saw that Kurt Vonnegut is really mentioned. Apart from this moment Vonnegut is almost never mentioned but you always feel his presence as if he was the one narrating the book. The two Billy Pilgrim's main difference is that one is the puppet of the other one. One is the Billy that can't change anything and just lets himself drag by and there is the other Billy who does the time traveling and knows the past, present, and future. Vonnegut is the superior force that rules over both Billy in first person and in third person and determines their fate and actions in this book.
A thing that really stayed with me while reading through the chapter that was a long one was when Billy was with Rosewater and he told him about what the book said about Christianity. "But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected" (Slaughterhouse-five pg 109). This is one thing I had to stop and think about because I am Catholic and believe in God. After thinking this for a while I thought that Vonnegut might have shown this in his book to show one of the features of war. In Christianity according to Vonnegut "Found it so easy to be cruel" (Slaughterhouse-five pg 108), but I think he is in previous statements is questioning the reader about the morals of war. Everyone in this world believes in a superior force that rules over everything else, some may call it God or others may call it destiny. If everyone believes in a superior force that has to do good and teach its people to be good then why do wars happen? All those deaths, sufferings and destroyed hearts are things that can affect a person eternally. I am not sure if Vonnegut's intention of using religion in his book was aimed to question why war happened but it might be possible because war is something that is opposite to religion and would be a question more like where is God. This really reminded me to the story of Job in the Bible when he felt that God had abandoned him. I do not think God abandoned him but was doing a test on him to see if he was worthy and maybe that is why wars can happen in human kind.
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