... (false sense of control), waiting to be kidnapped; lac

1
Slaughterhouse V -3

• Historical Representations vs. Science Fiction
• in a Postmodern World

2
What did we learn last time?

• War (cruel irrational where myth and heroism
  are impossible) and the Postmodern World
  (experience mediated by popular culture)
• Vonneguts, Billy Pilgrims and Roland Wearys
  Responses to the War

3
Starting Questions about Chaps 5-6

• Do you get involved in the story? Where?
• What do you think about Tralfamadore and their
  views of time and the universe?
• What roles do the minor characters play
• Women such as Valencia and Montana Wildhack
• Authors such as Howard W. Campbell Jr. and
  Kilgore Trout (introduced by Eliot Rosewater)
• Representatives of war and revenge Roland Weary
  and Paul Lazzaro
• The meanings of So it goes?

4
Outline

• Plot Time From Spastic Fragments to Pattern
• More on the War
• Parodies of authorial figure
• Two Alternative Perspectives beside the Dark
  Comic one.
• Trauma ? fragmentation (? reconstruction)

5
Plot and Time

• 1922 Young Billy in Ilium
• 1944 Luxemburg forest/unstuck in time? English
  compound hospital? Dresden
• 1945-47 Studies Optometry hospital
• 1957 --set up in business (optometry)
• 1964 V meet OHare
• 1967 Lion Club meeting kidnapped by
  Tralfamadorians
• 1967 V go back to Dresden
• 1968 airplane crash
• 1968 V the novel SH-V
• 1976 (future) US balkanized, BP killed

Tralfamadore
6
Plot and Time (2) Pattern out of Fragments

• I Vonnegut -- preparing to write fragments of
  his life readings of wars and death.
• II BP talks about his time traveling and
  experience with T experience at the forest ?
  moments of death Wearys heroism vs. reality of
  being captured.
• III BP past joins the stream of POW, in
  boxcar present Lion Club, his motto, his son as
  a green beret Billy weeping. lack of control
• IV BP past boxcar journey, people dying?
  prison camp present daughters wedding night,
  BP watches movies (false sense of control),
  waiting to be kidnapped lack of free will

7
Plot and Time (3)

• V BP in T zoo, reading their books, getting to
  know their views of sex and time past in the
  prison camp, Cinderella play revised latrine
  episode hospital bed of 1944 and 1947
  present Valencia marriage and honeymoon (lack of
  or beginning of connectionsDerby Rosewater//
  everything is beautiful)
• VI past two small lumps in his coat future
  death ? Lazzaro on revenge BP as Cinderella the
  head Englishmans lecture trip to Dresden, Billy
  as crown
• B vs. the surgeon. clowning Fate vs. survival

8
War Trauma vs. its Dark Comedy

• 1. Billy Pilgrim repressed and then go crazy
  twice
• 2. The English Compound dead center
  wealthiest p. 93-94
• Cinderella play (98) the Blue Fairy Godmother
  (127)
• The Head Englishmans lecture
• 3. Dresden as an Open City - The 8 ridiculous
  Dresdoners --149

9
Self-Reconstructions through Author Surrogates
Kilgore Trout

• from Ilium 111
• The Gospel from Outer Space 108-109 New
  Gospel dont kill people with no connections
• Fourth Dimension 104
• More next time

10
Authors (2)

• Ridiculed
• Official Historian -- Rumford183-191 198
• Literary critics and the death of fiction 205
• Be-littled, but human
• Vonnegut I was there. 125 148
• Eliot Rosewater 102 (like Derby)

11
Two Alternative Views(1) Tralfamadorian Time as
Simultaneous Moments

• Why me? 77 Ts novel 88
• The moment simply is. We are all bugs in amber.
  27 86
• five sexes on T, seven on earth 114
• human beings as millepedes 87 their view of our
  concept of time 115
• War Peace "We spend eternity looking at the
  peaceful moment" 116-17
• "Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurts" 122

12
Tralfamadorian their Sense of Superiority

• in their zoo 111--his life in the zoo, think
  nothing of the Gay Nineties couple on the wall
  happy with his body 113
• Montana Wildhack 132
• ? Would you like to live in such a world?
• ? Do you agree with their world views? (Billy
  does. p. 190)

13
Tralfamadorian ViewsPossible Interpretations

• Fatalist
• Denies progressive views of history arbitrary
  causal connections.
• Aesthetic an image of life that is beautiful
  and surprising and deep.
• Escapist Non-Human just look at the good
  moments
• Cosmic or Macrocosmic we are just a bug frozen
  in amber.

14
Two Alternative Views(2) Humanist

• Dreams/fantasies of Adam and Eve,
• Survival of the weak giraffes (99)
• Next time 161 births
• the innkeeper says in German, Good night,
  Americans. Sleep well. 181
• the horse 197,
• the bird syrup,

15
So It Goes?

• So it goes. 27 candle and soap made from dead
  Jews 96 water 101 Billy's own death 143
• Death or no death 90-91

16
Repetitions Obsession or Humanist Concern

• ??????? (echolalia) Echolalia?192
• I was there. Billy//Vonnegut.
• Sleep like spoon
• Edgar Derby p. 83 poor old
• Ask about Wild Bob 188 212
• SongsYon Yonson to Cotton workers p. 176
• ? Patterns created but not fixed.