Trusting Instincts

The quote, “When food came in, the human beings were quiet and trusting and beautiful” (70), in chapter three truly displays the trusting instincts of humans. The men in the boxcar had no reason to trust anyone but in dangerous times our instincts are to trust blindly.

The trust from the men in the boxcar reminded me of when I worked at a gymnastics clinic for young kids. My job was to walk on the ground next to the beam while the children walked on the high beam. It amazed me that every kid held my hand as they walked across the beam. While they had no reason to trust me, they all did because they were in a dangerous situation, they were scared of falling.

In both situations, the instinct to trust was evident. Humans in times of danger trust and that was obvious in Slaughterhouse Five. I’m wondering if the quote was referring to the trust the prisoners have with each other or the trust between the prisoners and the guards? Also, why is it that humans decide to trust others instead of isolate themselves in times of danger?

Lack of Brotherhood in the War

It becomes apparent that while there is brotherhood in war there is also a sense of every man for himself when "The Three Musketeers", as Weary refers to them, splits up. Weary felt a false sense of brotherhood with scouts and wanted to tell the tale of "The Three Musketeers" behind German lines when he returned home.

That feeling of comradeship ended when the scouts, "...told Weary that he and Billy had better find somebody to surrender to. The scouts weren't going to wait for them anymore." (49) The scouts left Billy and Weary because they thought they could get farther on their own, reinforcing the idea of every man for himself.

The brotherhood in war is normally highlighted in text, such as All Quiet on The Western Front, when Paul, Kat, Albert, and Mueller stuck together throughout the war. Why did Vonnegut decide to show that they did not stick together like you would more commonly read about?

The Significance of the Word "Children"

The fact that the war was mostly fought by young people became apparent in Chapter 3. The use of the word "children" from the title, Slaughterhouse Five or The Children's Crusade to Wild Bob's final address to his regiment, demonstrate the idea that the was was being fought by foolish young men rather than heroic men.

In chapter 3, we see the true hurt and loss of children when Wild Bob is talking to Billy, "'You one of my boys?' This was a man who had lost an entire regiment, about forty-five hundred men- a lot of them children, actually" (66). Wild Bob was lost and felt alone without any of the young boys from his regiment. Later in chapter 3, Billy notices how, "... the privates on Billy's car were very young- at the end of childhood" (68).  It's ironic that Billy notes that they are at the end of childhood when he is not far from childhood himself.

Instead of men fighting the war, many children took their place on the battlefield. Why did so many children took part in the war and what significance do the children have in the novel?

Week 1, semester 1 - Chapters 1-3: PTSD and Aliens

It seems in chapter three of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five that Billy uses Tralfamadore as a means of escaping his Monotonous life and his past war experiences. Vonnegut published the novel in 1969, before post-traumatic stress disorder had entered our language (1980's), but Billy Pilgrim clearly exhibits symptoms of this disorder, one cause being how horrendous his war experiences were.

In the first three chapters, as Vonnegut jumps to and fro with the plot of the book, we still see bits and pieces of Billy's life during WWII. First, Pilgrim is stuck behind enemy lines after the Battle of the Bulge, barely surviving as a fellow american soldier, Roland Weary, continues to beat and intimidate Pilgrim as Weary sees him as a burden to him and the two scouts Roland has believed he has befriended. After the scouts leave Roland and Billy, Weary immediately attacks Billy, believing it was his fault. "It was entirely Billy's fault that this fighting organization no longer existed, Weary felt, and Billy was going to pay" (Vonnegut page 51). Pilgrim and Weary are then caught by the Germans and put into a POW camp as he is forced to reenact his capture, and is crammed into a box car with other American prisoners of war and watches a body of a fellow soldier is taken away from one of the cars.

It's not surprising that Pilgrim is having the flashbacks to the war as if he was really there or that he suffers from hallucinations either, but there is one question: Why the Tralfamadorians? Well, there could be multiple answers to this, and maybe they have more than one purpose. But I suppose that the reason Billy Pilgrim uses these aliens "shaped like plumber's friends" (toilet plungers) is that he has a lot of messed up and horrific things in his memory which seem stuck there. And obviously, toilet plungers are in the business of unclogging drains, and Pilgrim seems to use the Tralfamadorians as a way to "unclog" these bad experiences in his life despite not actually saying it in the text. But like I said, could the Tralfamadorians be used by Vonnegut to represent something else? and if so, what would they represent?

PTSD information from The National Institute of Mental Health and The U.S. department of Health research portfolio online reporting tools

Example Posts - Meets and Exceeds

The following are two posts that may serve as models for your own. These posts use The Grapes of Wrath as the considered text, but the requirements are the same. The first is an example of a post that MEETS the standard; the second is an example that EXCEEDS the standard.

Meets:

It became apparent in chapter 5 that the narrative of the Joad family is only one perspective of the struggles people faced in the 1930s. The use of racial slurs and culturally insensitive language reminds us that the Joads, although they are a poor family lacking many basic resources, they do have the privilege of being white. The use of the word "nigger" and the highly insensitive way of speaking about Native Americans remind us that whiteness was a privilege that could elevate the status of even the most desperate farmer.

I wonder how this theme of race and culture will continue to develop over the course of the novel. What will the presence of race and racism continue to teach us about the social fabric of the U.S. in the '30s?

Exceeds:

The description of the land in Chapter 5 tells us a lot about the tensions arising out of the industrialization of farming. The physical connection to the land is broken, and this seems to lead to a bigger gap that transcends the physical.

In chapter 5, we learn that the tractor driver "could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth...Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses" (35, 36).

Humans are being replaced by machines, and these machines will never love and appreciate the land (and what the land provides) as much as the humans who farmed it with their own hands. I am curious to see how this theme continues to play out in the novel - will the divide between the human and the machine continue to grow, and will it cause the farmers' struggle to become increasingly bitter and devastating?

Notes:

• Please consider your grammar and spelling. These posts should be thoughtful and well-crafted. 
• As you can see, the posts need not be long. A few sentences, or a small paragraph or two is sufficient. Remember - quality over quantity! 
• Please title your post purposefully - your title should help give a heads-up about the content of your post.