Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut
Now I know my analysis tends to be wrong on many of these literary works, so I developed a plan B! Basically, this scenario is the most likely reasoning behind Billy's time travel if the Tralfamadorians don't exist. Throughout the novel, the narrator refers to many different objects by describing them with metaphors and similes used to describe the differing objects independently from one another. When Billy's father threw him in the deep end at the pool, he eventually saved Billy and had a watch on his wrist. Billy noticed this because "the watch had a radium dial" (Vonnegut 90). After that flash back, Billy is returned to WWII and he notices the other prisoners of War. He saw that "there were more starving Russians with faces like radium dials" (Vonnegut 91). This sort of coincidence occurs with several other metaphors throughout the book, and they happen so closely together that they must be linked. If he is describing completely separate memories by using the same characteristics, then Billy must have a skewed memory. This line of thinking would suggest that Billy has really lived his entire life, and the telling of this story is simply him trying to recount the events as interestingly as he could. In his old age, he is most likely forgetful, and therefore reuses similar metaphors and similes to describe totally different events, perhaps for emphasis to his story. The idea of aliens abducting him just helps the reader grasp the idea of time travel, when, in actuality, Billy simply reveals different parts of his memory at different times in order to create a suspenseful story!
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