The Happy Chop

1. Slippery Slope: If you love a little fruit, or even a big one, you´ll love Happy Chop!

2. Slippery Slope: Happy Chop is so compact you´ll never put it away!

3. Unit fallacy: It´s free, just pay shipping and handling!

4. False Comparison: It´s easy and it´s chic, like me!

5. False Comparison: Carbon steel blades rotate at different angles, it´s safer and faster than knives!

6. Unit fallacy: A $90 value, all for $19.95.

7. Hasty Generalization: There´s nothing worse than seeing an grown man cry.

8.Chanticleer fallacy: No knives, no tears.

A "Happy" Ending

Related to Cinderella or not, Slaugtherhouse-Five´s ending was LAME. The story is full of sarcasm, mockery, and black humor, and the ending didn´t meet my expectations. Many endings in the story tend to be lame, and by "endings" I also mean deaths. Valencia died in the most lame way she could have died. Only dying because of her overweight would have made it more boring.

Otherwise, there were two characteristics of a vehicle that make me consider many variables. After the POWs finish the "body-mining," they just leave. The only vehicle available is "an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses, yet the outstanding characteristic about it was that "the wagon was green and coffin-shaped." This is the last mock in Slaughterhouse-Five, where I feel Vonnegut represents their survival of WWII as simple, and the fact that they are leaving as an introduction to a dangerous and life-threatening journey. I am forced to believe this because of the "coffin-shaped" vehicle, the tree that was "leafing out," and the way Vonnegut tends to under-rate any war eventualities. 

I do feel the end of the novel lets me down, I awaited a special ending with unexpected turns, not Billy leaving in serenity. I still believe Billy was crazy and Trafalmadore was made-up, but it was his way of escaping our current world, which is torn apart every day by the endless inner and external conflicts we have to confront.

I Feel Gay Today

An aphorism I can´t get of my mind:

"It was a picture of a Gay Nineties couple on a bicycle built for two. Billy looked at that picture now, and tried to think something about the couple. Nothing came to him. There didn´t seem to be anything to thing about those two people."

Wasn´t gay intolerance one of the big factors why WWII unfolded? Once again, Vonnegut continues mocking traits from the time period, and this maxim is deemed important.

I tend to feel awed by the magnitude of WWII, and would even have the nerve to compare Hitler with a madman. I dare anyone to explain how someone decides to exterminate a high percentage of Europe´s population to try to achieve the perfect race, the Aryans.

How did this maniac achieve this amount of followers? He used words. They are the poison employed by leaders to influence their public. I refer to them as poison because they´re always able to modify the listener´s thoughts, whether in a negative or positive way. A clear example is Hitler´s Salzburg speech against Jews in 1920:

"Jewish contamination will not subside, this poisoning of the nation will not end, until the carrier himself, the Jew, has been banished from our midst."

People became both fearful and discriminational towards this culture, but it wasn´t only the Jews he reached out to annihilate, between the prosectuted were Jehovah´s Witnesses, the mentally ill, homosexuals, Roma peoples, and any other race that wasn´t considered pure. Would you have anything to say about the picture?

"Billy is Normal, We Are All Crazy"

Is it even logical to believe that if every person in the world read "Slaugtherhouse-Five," only one of the 6.97 million human beings isn´t crazy? Isn´t this thought taking it overboard? I tend to think I disagree with Viviana´s controversial blog post, yet I think about José Saramago´s novel Blindness, where a plague begins to infect people and they begin to lose their sight. Thinking out of the box, there is a very slight chance that all of us have been infected by a plague and none of us have realized. Vivana´s reference to The Eye of the Beholder is more than valid, we might have grown used to living in this madness and consider Billy crazy, blinded by our own condition. Of course, these thoughts are all far-fetched, but like any philosopher would say, there is always a chance to doubt.

Lastly, I don´t consider Billy brave. In fact, I consider him weak and scared, scared of overachieving, scared of not being satisfied, scared of living in the real world instead of escaping into the fantastic world of Trafalmadore.

Vonnegut: On the Verge of Losing His Mind

Like I said in one of my previous blog posts, most of the story unfolds around mocking war. Therefore, my feelings towards the following excerpt are unclear:

"Billy wondered if there was a telephone somewhere. He wanted to call his mother, to tell her he was alive and well."

Billy wants to let his mother know he is well, that he has been surviving the concentration camps. Anyone would with all the comodities the Englishmen gave them. Ironically, Billy has dodged death many times, even thought it´s constantly right around the corner (bombs, starvation, climate, etc). Billy says he´d like to talk with his mother and tell her something, and this may be due to the thought that Billy was based on Vonnegut´s life. When he was young, Vonnegut´s mother committed suicide and the lack of a maternal figure probably influenced how Billy acts with his own mother in the novel. He seems scared to confront her, fearing letting her down and unable to express himself to her. Mrs. Pilgrim is presented as a lovely person, and her conversations with Rosewater expose these traits.

Children who lose a parent tend to have three times the risk of depression than those with two living parents, as well as an increase in the risk for post-traumatic stress disorder. These issues combined with surviving war probably made Vonnegut a ticking psycho machine.

Carpe Diem

I see a trend in Billy´s attitude. He is SO easily satisfied with life I feel frustrated. He could achieve so much more but seems like life doesn´t have to do much in order to impede his from growing in various aspects.

As far as I´ve read, he´s satisfied with:

- His wife

- Her physique

- His Earthling habitat

- His lack of the ability to see in many dimensions

- Death

- His room tempreture

- Bed in the Concentration camp

The list could go on for a long time. They lead me to ask myself, why would Billy be satisfied to easily? Did he give up on life, even though he had a life many would consider enviable? What would be so striking to cause a man to lose the desire to keep living?

People do even the impossible to live, often depending on other´s leftovers to feed their families, or stealing food to have access to it. I find it hurtful that Billy is so "eager" to have a roadblock instead of overcoming it, given to all the things and commodities he can access.

War may have been one of the reasons leading Billy´s trian of thought, yet I can´t be sure, since the way he´s "unstuck in time" makes it hard for the reader to organize chronologically certain events which are related.

Finally, the way Billy is so careless about death reminds me of diverse cultures in terms of similarities and differences. There are endless ways to embrace death, ignore it, mourn because of it, or introduce concepts to inforce the continuum of the soul in this world.

Clothing Magnetism?

I actually "googled" the term "animal magnetism," and the meaning I found was the following:

Animal Magnetism is a person's sexual attractiveness or raw charisma.

How could a trench coat have animal magnetism? I first thought the term referred to when people stare and you actually feel their gaze, which now seems ridiculous. So why would Vonnegut use this term to introduce the setting in Chapter 5? The previous definition was followed by this intricate one:

"Originally the term referred to a supposed magnetic fluid or ethereal medium that resided in the bodies of animate beings (i.e., those who breathe)."  

This leads me to ask myself, is Vonnegut considering the same concepts I am? Did he acknowledge that plants also "breathe"? Is the magnetic fluid blood?

Without going in depths into this concept, I do believe blood is the answer to these questions. Maybe the trench coat was a constant reminder of the death and bloodbath surrounding him, to later find himself rewarded when he found a "two-carat diamond and a partial denture [...] an obscene little artifact - silver and pearl and tangerine." 

This story is just like Jesus´, who was forced to climb a mountain with a cross where he was to be crucified. Then was rewarded by going to Heaven, where his father awaited. I believe the cross was a symbol of the misery he had to endure, and even though the symbolism in both cases is different, the concept is similar. 

Lazzaro really left me thinking. Even thought I believe his bravery is non-existent and he has the personality of a raisin, if people thought like he did (you should only be violent when it comes to vengeance), war wouldn´t exist. People wouldn´t bother fighting for their country when it was their associate/neighbor/friend/cousin/etc. who "messed" with them. Violence between individuals would increase, but depending on people´s morals, they would/wouldn´t act upon these ideals.

Mocking History?

A very interesting point in Chapter 5 was the narrators mocking tone towards major occurences in Billy´s life. For example, the differences in terms of the treatment the Germans gave the Englishmen, Russians, and Americans covered a wide range. Englishmen supposedly had become officers and monitored the camp, yet it seems harsh they would betray their nation after fighting for it. Hard for me to accept, but I would also act this way. "With desperate times comes desperate measures." I once heard this and completely support the message; eventhough I´ve never been in a position so demanding, if need was unbearable, I´d probably take many unmoral decisions. Patrotism would be the last thing on my mind, were I part of the Englishmen. Amazingly, on page 95, the Englishmen refer to the Germans as "Jerry" and thank the Americans for putting up a good show, promising "Jerry was on the run."

The narrator insists these men made "war look stylish and reasonable, and fun", yet the English make it obvious they can´t wait to be back in England, and one of the reasons may be the lack of female companionship. Men are often sex-driven and nowadays, very scandalous about it. I find it offensive towards the female figure, thus I often feel men are controlled by their animal insitinct. This is contradictory because most men strive to leave their "animality" behind and often insult each other with animal characteristics.    

I feel a bit crestfallen by how a human´s death is compared to water´s, animals, and champagne´s "death." I don´t mean to undervalue animal life, but I do feel like something as simple as a drink shouldn´t be considered as valuable as human life. "So it goes."

Shockingly, Americans and Russians don´t live in squalor. Billy is clearly treated the worst, even his fellow Americans treat him in an irrespectful way, but in the book´s context, the life quality exceeds anyhting I ever imagined for war prisioners during the Holocaust. Their welcome included "a safety razor, a washcloth, a package of razor blades, a chocolate bar, two cigars, a bar of soap, ten cigarettes, a box of matches, a pencil, and a candle." Actually, it was considered a miracle to have a pencil, and you were really lucky if you had more than a stub. Afterwards, the narrator mentions a ghastly "fact", the candles and soap were made of fat from Gypsies, Jews, communists, "and other enemies of the state." I suddenly remembered my visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I visited long time ago, but still haven´t been able to forget. These places are made to honor the dead and remind people what happened,. Nevertheless, I´d still like to consign the following memories into oblivion:

 

1. An actual boxcar from WWII as part of the exposition.

2. The testimonies written by various survivors.

3. Germans boasted that they filled pillows with Jews´ hair and made furniture with skin.

4. Nazis used to experiment on prisoners to develop cures for diseases and military equipment.

This last point leads me to think that Billy may be crazy, and that his "abductions" by Trafalmadorians were what he made up to ignore or overcome experiments he was sumitted to, but this is only an idea.

Pilgrimage in Trafalmadore

In Chapter 4, I see repetitions or patterns of different colors, and they seem significant. Vonnegut mentions the orange and black stripes in the roof of the train taking Americans to concentration camps and on a tent in his daughter´s marriage. Later, he looks at his feet, which were ivory and blue, just like the claw in the boxcar. The emphasis the author gives to these combinations must have a meaning, which the reader may later realize.

Another trend in the text is the recurrent mention of Adam and Eve, letting the reader infer that Billy believes or considers them, therefore also has faith in God and considers the original sin.

A very important characteristic of Billy Pilgrim is how he seems to have grown accustomed to being "unstuck in time", being able to perceive and even control when he will be traveling. There is a parragraph where the narrator explains how Billy watches war movies backwards. The way he exposes the movie seems to be mocking the impossibility of repairing war´s damages and effects on the world.

Lastly, Trafalmadorians seem to possess all the stereotypical characteristics of of aliens, with their telepathic communications, flying saucers, and green eyes. The only notable difference is that Trafalmadorians seem to have befriended Billy, while in other stories, aliens abduct people against their will. The way these aliens treat Billy like a guest seems awkward, since I´m accustomed to hear about experimentation on humans by force.

Princess is Going to War

While reading the novel, I realized how unstable the order of the events is. I decided Vonnegut´s writing makes it difficult for the reader, or at least for me, to understand what is happening. I can´t be sure when the present is, since Billy Pilgrim is always "jumping" to and fro between moments in his life.

 

Now, the golden boots. I can´t imagine how uncomfortable a pair of golden boots can be, or why the former owner wore them for war, but they were included in the story for a reason. It may be their symbolism, which can only be inferred. I believe they represent the foolishness of the poor when it comes to participation in war, or maybe purity and temptation. The way that Billy "travels" though time in the story, publically shared his "expiriences" in Trafalmadore, and the fact he saw Adam and Eve in a pair of boots make Billy seem demented.

I used to watch a series called Taken, and I´ve seen many movies on alien abductions but this is the one I relate the most to, because one of the main characters, Russell Keys, was a veteran from WWII and had recurring nightmares in which aliens adbucted him. The story was science fiction and in it´s context Russell was abducted, so he becomes a homeless person in order to avoid being taken again. A very important difference between these stories is that Billy seems to have liked being abducted, while Russell is mortified when contemplating the fact of being taken another time. 

Another relationship I make is how farmers formed groups to "collect" Americans who would be handed in as war prisioners with the XVI century, when the need for slaves led African´s to round up their fellow Africans and sell them to slave commercants, who traveled through the Middle Passage.

The fact that the narrator is omniscient and tells details he couldn´t know were happening seems queer. For example, how could he know that while the irregulars were taking Billy and Weary, the other Musketeers were being murdered? This characteristic of the narrator is important for the reader to understand events that willlater be introduced in a deeper way. It´s also siginifcant that the narrator finally makes a connection between himself, Billy Pilgrim, and Bernard O´Hare, attesting they were in war together. While in boxcars, prisoners are refered to as "human beings", and leaves an option for the reader to decide what the guards were, whether more or less than them, this depending on the readers train of thought.

And So It Goes (The Life of Billy Pilgrim)

Even though Billy´s life is full of traumatic or unusual experiences, Vonnegut narrates his life´s most important event with such carelessness it amazes me. The author also repeats the phrase "So it goes" many times, after explaining that the Tralfamdarians used it to as a motto to overcome death, since they had the capability to see four dimensions. This ability made them see the object/place in all the "states" it had been, so death was nonexistent for them. Thus, everything is related in terms of cause and effect.

Billy Pilgrim does remind me to a movie. The film "Forrest Gump" is kind of ironic, because it shows a man who lives an incredible life because of sheer luck. Forrest meets the president, teaches Elvis Presley how to dance, is honored as an All-American, and lastly, goes to the Vietnam War. Both main characters seem goofy and unaware, and surprisingly survive war, innocent without realizing.

Another thought I´d like to share is how Billy's should have kept his flying saucers, Tralfamadore, and aliens to himself. The accident which he survived may have affected his logical thinking, but even today, people don't respect these thoughts and I consider them his excuses for not wanting to live, or maybe to make his life more interesting. If I were his daugther and knew my father was acting this way, I´d probably have tried to suppress these crazy ideas from being published. As a last resort I'd send him to th geriatric, where his wife resides.

Lastly, I´d like to share why I feel frustrated against Billy´s attitude. I believe he is scared to live. He suffered the loss of his wife and son, an accident which probably affected his ability to think and WWII, only to give up and play the victim´s role. He was given another chance to live (dodging bullets, surviving accidents, etc.), so he should have made the best of it.

War: Are you a victim or beneficary?

I am openly offended when people use their war experiences to earn money. Yes, it was terrible, probably lifechanging, but its not an excuse to earn money off it. I hadn´t even realized how many books about war are written, it´s taking advantage of a tragedy for humanity. People use the excuse "I want people to know my story, it shouldn´t happen again", but after twenty books on the same topic, it becomes like United State´s Civil War; boring.

The people in the following citation:

"The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who had really fought"

...were probably patriots, possibly offered service before being requested. This context reminds me of the movie "Captain America", where Steven Rogers offered military service and was turned down  four different times due to health problems, yet his strive to aid his country is admirable. Vonnegut also discusses the Children´s Crusade, in which supposedly 30,000 children volunteered to be sent to Palestine, but were really sold into slavery (never proven to be completely true). These are all examples of volunteers for the greater good, but some unfortunately ended in a negative way.

Even though Billy had been in WWII many years before the narrative, I find it hard to forget what I´d consider one of the most astonishing moments of his life.I believe he really wants to remember, not only to write the book, but because the feeling of involuntarily forgetting memories should be confusing. Nevertheless, it seems Billy is certain war is terrible. He urges his children never to be part of anything related to war, so he must at least remember some of the horrors, because if not he´s only pleasing society by disapproving it, it´s how we´re supposed to consider it.

Finally, Mary´s comment about the way Billy will write the book is more than valid. Guns give people power, they´ve been splattering blood all over history. But most authors write as victims (Anne Frank, Elie Wiesel, etc.) Nowadays, there are other ways in which war is promoted. Video games, movies, newscast, etc. are some of the innumerable ways war begins to engulf us. I can´t help but consider The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. The story is introduced by a very original narrator, Death. It also develops during WWII, but the originaity of the book is that we can observe a very different point of view, neither victim nor soldiers, but omniscient with Death´s opinion.

The Perfect Life by John Koethe

Youth. Comes hand in hand with happiness, childhood, grandmas who give you their change to spend in the little candy shop just around the block, fighting sleep to FINALLY catch a glimpse Santa, just to find the Oreo´s you left missing…

These are some stereotyped memories, and now you realize, how you probably had this label of infancy. Doesn’t time pass to lunge those dreadful issues at you? So unexpected while you are submerged in this “joyous” phase of your life. “But Mom, EVERYBODY´s going!” Doesn’t it ring a bell? My heads pounding from its clang because lately being young has been a pain in the buttocks.

Aging isn’t all “fun and parties”. Or getting accepted in an Ivy League university and marrying prince charming. That’s what I used to anticipate, but it’s more than that. Nevertheless that’s all we have to think about, we don’t worry about wrinkles and cellulite. Not yet.

The aging makes people so insecure, they under come various procedures just to grab onto their youthful appearance a little more. This world is just too full of vanity, people just don’t realize. Nowadays, people are so shallow, trying to obtain these clichéd however impossible to reach perfect noses/legs/abs/hair/bums/teeth/breasts… and yet the list goes on and on. People are no longer satisfied with themselves, in a world where media urges you to meet these impossible standards, how could anyone? And getting old? Many people´s worst fear! We have these enormous stores with endless (and useless) products to improve ANYTHING you dislike. I mean it when I say anything.

"Where is she getting at?" I wrote this "psalm" on vanity and aging because as far-fetched as it seems, it does relate to the poem. The character in it used to be so happy, considered his life complete, so perfect. She (assuming the narrator´s female) felt she had such level of satisfaction with life, until the realization that time was passing hit her. She became disgusted just like others will when they find themselves under an endless rain of deceptionbecause they refused to accept one of the few things that are certain in life, aging.

Why are people so afraid of becoming old? The elderly used to be respected, aging was simply embraced, it came with wisdom and power. Now, the aged are alone, afraid to be sent to a geriatric. In the poem, loneliness, sickness, and being forgotten is clearly one of the narrator´s fears. These haunt me too. Having children, raising them to get married and leave you forgotten… who would do that to the two people who have cared more for you than for themselves? But it’s happening. Everywhere, all around you. However, nobody realizes, and we just let it go like any other painful memory that is useless and aching to keep. 

“But the human dies and what I take for granted bears a name to be forgotten soon, as the things I know turn into unfamiliar faces.”

Yet, the narrator looks back with deception, seems to have learned from a mistake in the past, most probably a lie and so it seems aging still comes with wisdom. Regretful thoughts flood the poem, (“The fake security of someone in the grip of a delusion”), thus something is missing in her life. The positivity with which the story is introduced is slowly fading away. Other than alone, dying, forgetful and old, the character seems to be handicapped. These deductions can be confirmed with the following excerpts from the text;
- “What feels ample now turns colorless and cold.”

- “As the things I know turn into unfamiliar faces”

- “In a strange room, leaving merely a blank space”

- “Of a perfect life, with closes over”
After reading the poem various times, it doesn’t seem as cheerful as it first did. The poem´s title seems ironic, as the narrator´s life no longer deems perfection, but seems nostalgic instead. Zoethe delivers a person’s life in a few stanzas. These may be projections of his life, without much detail but instead feeling and depth of ideas and thoughts, so intimate they lead me to assume they aren’t his to share, but a friend´s, or even a fictional character´s.

Poetic Justice in Dante´s Inferno

“What goes around, comes around”

Poetic justice is a literary device used in modern literature in which the story is modified in order for morally correct deeds to be rewarded and/or actions considered valueless are punished by an unexpected change in the story, related to the character's conduct. Poetic justice has the same basic principles of karma, the actions you perform (cause) induce the effect, which affects you directly.

The Diviners, Magicians, and Astrologers reside in the Eight Circle, Malebolge, since divinity and magic were considered to be fraud. Dante and Virgil enter the Fourth Pouch, where they presence something unbelievable. The inhabitants of this pouch once left their common jobs and life convincing others they had powers which allowed them to see into the future. Therefore, while in Hell, the people are condemned look back forever, literally. The people destined to this pouch have their heads set backwards between their shoulders and have to walk this way. Dante and the Church both thought it was very offensive to deny and challenge God´s power for any pagan beliefs, so this is why they endure these consequences. Therefore, we can assure Inferno´s Canto XX does contain poetic justice, since the offenders have to suffer in a way that is related to the sin they committed.