I am convinced that war leaves permanent and unchangeable memories etched in one's brain.
My grandpa, who is 89 years old, was a navigator on a B-29 in the Pacific theater of World War Two. Although my grandpa could not tell you what he had for lunch earlier that day, he could tell you with certainty the direction and velocity of the wind on a specific bombing mission. He could tell you how many pounds of firebombs he dropped on a specific target and how many times his crew had to land the plane with only one engine. However, these facts almost always come out in a random non-chronological order that does not flow as any form of a story.
I would venture to say that this is because when one is in war, it does not always make sense. Everything is happening with such rapidness and panic that one can not possibly carefully observe and take everything in without being killed.
Perhaps this is what Vonnegut is trying to portray in Slaughterhouse-Five. The choppy story that skips from day to day and year to year is perhaps an attempt to explain how the experiences of war are remembered. To go even further, perhaps Vonnegut is trying to show how live is perceived after being in a war.
In any case, I believe that Vonnegut's unconventional writing style is an attempt to give the reader a similar experience to the main character, because no amount of description could accurately portray it.
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i liked the last statement in your first paragraph the best, and i think it shows something important about Vonnegut's novel. Not only does Vonnegut mimic the haphazard chaos of war, he mimics the haphazard chaos of Billy Pilgrim's brain--both during and especially after the war. By the time Slaughterhouse Five was written, war trauma and shock trauma were being researched. His novel is partially about the damages to Billy Pilgrim's brain, but it is also imitating some of them.
I think that Slaughterhouse Five really questions ones mind and also ones memory. When reading your post, I couldn't help but think that all of our minds retain memories in different ways. Some people are blessed with an outstanding ability to retain memories, while others are not, but one thing that remains the same is that many people often lose them as they age. Thus leading to the randomness and gaps missing in the story, or at least that is one explanation. Also people usually have selective memories, they remember either the good things or things that stick out to them but other than those the rest usually fade away.
Interesting post Connor. Like you say, many aging war veterans remember these aspects of their lives more than anything. I think the main reason for this is because war is so frightening. In life, we remember extreme memories more than casual ones. For example, I will always remember when my Grandfather passed away, but I can't remember what the novel Out of the Dust was about. Also, I think people define themselves when in a war. Because of this, these memories are so important to them. In his novel, Vonnegut tries to show how much the war has affected Billy, and I would assume that it is a product of similar things we have mentioned.
I like Jack and Mikey's point about selective memory. We remember the things that stick out, good or bad. We choose, I think subconsciencely, which moments to remember in life.
I agree with the reason you offer to explain how soldiers view warfare. And it probably is true that if soldiers observed everything on the battlefield, they would not come out alive. For this reason, the information that Billy remembers is spit out randomly as he remembers it randomly. And as Tess says, Vonnegut effectively portray the chaos of war and the chaos burning in Billy's mind.
I like your theory behind Vonnegut's choppy writing style. I think it makes sense and gives meaning to something that is hard to recognize as a reader as to the purpose for his writing style. It's hard to believe that Vonnegut would just use this writing style for absolutely no reason at all.
A life changing experience such as war is hard to forget, especially with some of the things that your grandpa must have seen on some of his missions.
I never thought about the structure of the book that way. I agree with you completely on how fast war is and how high your adrenaline is during battle. I play football, and I can't tell you every single play, but some more than other stand out to me. I can't tell you how, I don't think anybody has an answer, but in different situations we take a little something away from each one. Like your grandfather said he could remember the direction and velocity of the wind that certain day. From any situation you can remember a sight, a smell, how something felt, or how something sounded. I agree with you completely that Vonnegut remembers random things in no certain order, but in each story he remembers something specific that triggers some other memory.
The audience learns so much about Billy's character just from the way the book is written. The lost and confused story line represents Billy's feelings and attitudes. It is difficult to describe the trauma of war and the author does a great job of telling us about the character without concrete descriptions. This style of writing really challenges the reader to pay attention and step into the shoes of Billy. As I read this book I really have to pay attention and often times find myself reading the same line over and over. This book while confusing,makes me constantly think and explore different ideas.
I agree with that last part especially. It always seemed a little odd to me to be reading a linear novel about something so chaotic. I think trying to give the reader a real feeling on what's going on could be Kurt's real motive for writing the story this way. Assuming he doesn't have PTSD like someone else's comment speculated.
Connor, your post has again caught my attention. Relating your grandfather to the antics of Billy Pilgrim's adventures through Vonnegut's story-telling makes what we read in Slaughterhouse-Five seem more realsitic. We know the it's not Billy's fault that he is the way he is and that war has tremendous effects on humans.
You bring up an interesting point when you discuss how cloudy one's memory can be in time of war but this, in Billy Pilgrim's case, is simply part of something bigger. It's merely a side effect of Billy's mental instability. His experiences in Europe turned him into a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as we settled in class. Perhaps other veterans are subject to confusing their memory as a result of being in the heat of the moment but for Billy, I believe it is more a result of PTSD.
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