Time Jump VS Flashbacks

    Throughout the book I've mainly been focusing on the time jumps because they are a very big factor in Slaughterhouse-five. I've been trying to pay close attention to what connects the jumps in Billy's life to what hes doing in that present moment. For example, on page 44 Billy time jumps to visiting his mother in a nursing home while he was drowning in a pool. The aspect that connects these two is that Billy's mother was sick due to phenomena (fluid build up in the lungs) and Billy was drowning in water causing him not to be able to breathe. When first reading the book the concept of Billy time jumping seemed so abstract and hard to grasp but in reality almost everybody has had their own form of a "time jump".
     I can remember being four years old when I had my first trip to the hospital due to a kidney problem, out of the whole experience the most vivid memory I have is laying in my bed fresh out the shower with wet hair when my mom told me she had to take me to the hospital. As a four year old that was a pretty traumatic event and years later, every time I went to bed with wet hair I would flashback to getting taken to the hospital and feel the same sense of fear all over again. Obviously its not the same exact thing as a "time jump" considering your looking back and not forward but its the same concept. All of Billy's time jumps are meaningful to him and that's why he can make these connections between events. Do you ever have flashbacks similar to Billy's time jumps? Why do you think certain parts of events stick in our heads for so long? Also, what connects your flashbacks?

Vonnegut's interesting choice

   A question that sprung upon me during the very beginning of me reading Slaughterhouse-five was why Vonnegut chooses to dedicate his whole first chapter to explain why he wrote the book instead of jumping right into it. In the first twenty-two pages he tells us that almost everything were going to read is true and talks a great deal about his post war life. I thought this was an interesting way to start off a book and with it brought a lot of other questions for me. I began to wonder if Vonnegut didn't write the book this way would it change the way I interpreted it? Also, did Vonnegut want us to only view Slaughterhouse-five a certain way so that's why he did the first chapter like that? What do you think? Personally, I think that if an author takes the time out to explain why he wrote the book in the first actual chapter and not on the back of the book or in a preface it is to assure that the readers will see it and not just skip passed it. For him to want us to read it so bad makes me think that he wanted us to interpret the book in the way that he saw fit. I find this interesting because other than the first chapter the remainder of the book reminds me of 1984 in the sense that its left up to you how to perceive things. On the first line of the book it says, "All this did happened, more or less", why do you think Vonnegut wanted us to know that not all of what he wrote is true? However he made sure to let us know that most of the war parts are true, do you think this was for a particular reason? To me this book has a lot of meaning in almost every line and seems that almost everything Vonnegut does is for a particular reason, what do you think his reasoning is?

Tone of Slaughter House-Five

     In Slaughter House-Five I personally, find the tone to be regretful and pretty nostalgic. Due to Billy always traveling back in time I feel a sense of nostalgia because he's always thinking of the past and making connections to it. Billy also shows many feelings of regret in this book especially when talking about Valencia, his wife. On page 107 it says, "Billy didn't want to marry Valencia. She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy when he heard himself proposing marriage to her....". Billy married Valencia because he saw a secure and steady future with her, Valencia's rich dad sealed the deal for Billy. Looking back on the marriage you can tell Billy regrets marrying her because he doesn't love her at all.

    Another tone I see in the book is fear. In many of Billy's time jumps are negative and fearful moments. For example in chapter two Billy is drowning and then time jumps to visiting his mother in a nursing home because she was very sick with Phenomena. This is a fearful situation because both his and his moms life were at risk. Another example is when Billy time jumps to cheating on his wife, while this may not be as fearful it is defiantly negative. Do you think Billy feels guilty for cheating on his wife? Although Billy doesn't love Valencia do you believe he has any respect for her at all? In chapter five Valencia tells Billy she'll lose weight for him and he assures her he likes her the way she is even though in reality Billy thinks she overweight, do you think that was Billy's way of trying to be respectful? Or is he just strictly with her for the money and doesnt care how he treats her at all? I feel like it would be very hard to be married to someone and have kids with them and not have any emotion or feelings toward them at all. After all, Billy does really love his kids and takes an active part in their lives and if it wasn't for Valencia he wouldn't have them.