Slaughterhouse V -3Historical Representations vs.

Science Fiction

in a Postmodern World

What did we learn last time?1. War (cruel & irrational; where myth and

heroism are impossible) and the Postmodern World (experience mediated by popular culture)

2. Vonnegut’s, Billy Pilgrim’s and Roland Weary’s Responses to the War

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”?

Outline

1. Plot & Time: From Spastic Fragments to Pattern

2. More on the War

3. Parodies of authorial figure—

4. Two Alternative Perspectives beside the Dark Comic one.

Trauma fragmentation ( reconstruction)

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 O’Hare 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

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; Weary’s 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: daughter’s wedding night, BP watches movies (false sense of control), waiting to be kidnapped; lack of “free will”

Plot and Time (3) V: BP in BP in TT zoo, reading their books, getting to know their zoo, reading their books, getting to know their

views of sex and timeviews 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 connections[Derby & Rosewater]// everything is beautiful)

VI: past: two small lumps in his coat; future death Lazzaro on revenge; BP as Cinderella; the head Englishman’s lecture; trip to Dresden, Billy as crown;

B vs. the surgeon. “clowning” [Fate vs. survival]

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 Englishman’s lecture

3. Dresden as an Open City - The 8 “ridiculous” Dresdoners --149

Self-Reconstructions through Author Surrogates: Kilgore Trout from Ilium 111 —The Gospel from Outer Space: 108-109 —

New Gospel: don’t kill people with no connections

Fourth Dimension 104 More next time …

Author”s” (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)

Two Alternative Views(1): Tralfamadorian –Time as Simultaneous Moments Why me? 77 T’s 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

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)

Tralfamadorian Views—Possible Interpretations1. Fatalist; 2. Denies progressive views of history; arbitrary

causal connections.3. Aesthetic: “an image of life that is beautiful and

surprising and deep.”4. Escapist & Non-Human: just look at the good

moments;5. Cosmic or Macrocosmic: we are just a bug

frozen in amber.

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,

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

Repetitions – Obsession or Humanist Concern 「模仿言語症」 (echolalia) Echolalia?192 “I was there. Billy//Vonnegut. Sleep like spoon Edgar Derby p. 83; “poor old” Ask about Wild Bob 188; 212 Songs—Yon Yonson to Cotton workers p. 176

Patterns created but not fixed.