Vision of Life

“And then, one morning, they got up to discover that the door was unlocked. World War two in Europe was over.” (Vonnegut 215). These were the last words of this dreadful war story.  Throughout the book, we got to discover how much war affects and changes a particular soldier, Billy.  The novel also allowed us to get in touch and learn about diverse ways of thinking, such as the trafamadoures. This way of thinking was a real eye opener and questioner of fate’s real purpose.

We were able to analyze and depict Billy’s post-war behavior throughout the book, as well as, understand his meaning of life and vision towards society. “It was a ridiculous store, all about love and babies.” (Vonnegut 203). Billy had no regard towards human emotions. He only cared about his mother’s feelings and tried very hard to hide his hatred of life from her. He wanted to spare her the pain of knowing the real interpretation his son had of the world and of his life.

In reading the novel, one is able to experience character transformation never seen before. How an Earthling could change their entire perspective of life to understand and apply a totally different one, the trafamores ideology. It was due to this transformation that Billy was able to die at peace knowing that he couldn’t stop nor control his fate.

As the book progressed, I visualized a clear pattern of how the author managed to use the term “So it goes.” This expression has countless uses.  One of them was used when referring to events that were out of human control and were unworthy of analyzing. “Martin Luther king was shot a month ago. He died.. So it goes.”(Vonnegut 210). On the other hand, this expression is also used when Billy is no longer impacted by the horrifying consequences and aftermaths of war. “On an average, 324,000 new babies are born into the world every day. During that same day, 10,000 persons, on an average, will have starved to death form malnutrition. So it goes.” (Vonnegut 212).

This book also contains various literature terms and figure like allegories along with stoicism. It depicts many impacting events and left the reader with broad-minded ideas of the world and of life in general. The novel concludes with several unanswered questions; what is the real meaning of life and is their any particular way one should perceive the world. Hence, forcing the reader to create their own answer based on their own beliefs and the impact the book had on him.