Slaughterhouse Five (Part 2) Journal - Zach Vance
This week I took on the role of Passage Identifier, which entails summarizing the reading selection, then choosing a passage I felt was important to the story and explaining why it was significant.
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the beginning of Billy's time in German custody and his alien abduction in 1967. The narrative alternates between these two plot points at random intervals, as is typical of the story. After being abducted, Billy asks his Tralfamadorian captor why he was abducted (more specifically, he asks "Why me?"), to which the alien responds with another question: "Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" Billy says he has, and the Tralfamadorian says "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." The Tralfamadorian later elaborates on this analogy by describing the worldview of his species: "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."
I feel as though this statement provides explanation for the phrase "so it goes" that has been repeated throughout the story. Time does not have meaning. Moments do not have meaning. Things simply are. When a person dies, many see it as a great, tragic event. But to the Tralfamadorians (and perhaps to Billy), it is simply another moment that leads into another moment. "So it goes."
As the narrative continued to bounce around it's own timeline in it's usual frenzied, pinball-like style, I was reminded of the song "Once In A Lifetime" by the band Talking Heads. The person that the song's lyrics seem to be addressing is much like Billy Pilgrim, finding himself in a variety of situations with no real connection to one another. The song also shares a similar convention to SHF, where the book often repeats the phrase "so it goes" and the song features the repeated phrase "Same as it ever was."
"And you may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself
Behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well
How did I get here?"
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the beginning of Billy's time in German custody and his alien abduction in 1967. The narrative alternates between these two plot points at random intervals, as is typical of the story. After being abducted, Billy asks his Tralfamadorian captor why he was abducted (more specifically, he asks "Why me?"), to which the alien responds with another question: "Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" Billy says he has, and the Tralfamadorian says "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." The Tralfamadorian later elaborates on this analogy by describing the worldview of his species: "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber."
I feel as though this statement provides explanation for the phrase "so it goes" that has been repeated throughout the story. Time does not have meaning. Moments do not have meaning. Things simply are. When a person dies, many see it as a great, tragic event. But to the Tralfamadorians (and perhaps to Billy), it is simply another moment that leads into another moment. "So it goes."
As the narrative continued to bounce around it's own timeline in it's usual frenzied, pinball-like style, I was reminded of the song "Once In A Lifetime" by the band Talking Heads. The person that the song's lyrics seem to be addressing is much like Billy Pilgrim, finding himself in a variety of situations with no real connection to one another. The song also shares a similar convention to SHF, where the book often repeats the phrase "so it goes" and the song features the repeated phrase "Same as it ever was."
"And you may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself
Behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, well
How did I get here?"
Hi Zach, It would be interesting to flesh out this connection to Talking Heads a bit more. For instance what are the narrator(s) in this instances referring to in relationship to being and time and how do these perceptions complicate conventional notions of being in time?
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