An Analysis Of Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five"

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and through Billy Pilgrim,
the protagonist in Slaughterhouse Five, he attempts to reconcile the guilt
which one feels when one is randomly saved from death, while one's friends
and loved ones perish. Billy Pilgrim's own life was spared, but was never
able to live with himself knowing that so many others had died. The
feelings of guilt which emerged from his having survived the bombing of
Dresden and from Billy's fortunate escape from death under the shelter of
the fifth Slaughterhouse haunted Billy through much of his life. Billy
Pilgrim did not consider his survival a blessing, but a curse. A curse to
be forced to live on with the guilt of survival. Billy Pilgrim faced such
tremendous guilt, that he spent his entire life after Dresden trying to
alleviate himself of it. His guilt is in many ways comparable to the guilt
felt by the survivors of the Holocaust. Many Holocaust survivors had to
face their own "Why me?" question. However, many Holocaust survivors w ere
able to reconcile ...

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of death. He creates a new world where he can be free from his
guilt. That world is called Tralfamador.
The Traflamadorian world provided Billy Pilgrim with the escape
that he needed from his guilt. The Traflamadorian people are not locked in
a three dimensional realm. They are not locked in the frames of time to
which the human world is forced to live in. Traflamadorians can "shift"
through time as seamlessly as humans can walk towards a point. This ability
allows them to focus on the pleasant moments in the history of the Universe
and ignore the aspects of time they dislike. Thus, the fire-bombing of
Dresden is just a tiny frame in the vast space time continuum. The guilt ...

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