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Billy's psychological baggage

Arguably the most defining line of Slaughterhouse-Five is "so it goes". Billy Pilgrim uses this phrase freely throughout the novel, usually in the context of something which would normally be seen as tragic or sickening. The Tralfamadorians use it to remind themselves that time isn't linear, so they shouldn't feel sad or upset when bad things happen. However, Billy tends to use "so it goes" more dismissively, using it to push his problems and traumatic experiences aside. This toxic adaptation of Tralfamadorian culture hurts Billy, as it prevents him from reflecting on and working out his wartime trauma. 

From the beginning of the book, it's pretty clear that Billy has some level of psychological damage from the war. He shows recurring symptoms of PTSD, and his uncontrollable time travel could easily be interpreted as traumatic flashbacks. Every time Billy is haunted by his memories of the war, he pushes them away by simply stating, "so it goes". These memories accumulate, adding a lot of stress to Billy's life. It becomes clear that as Billy ages, he steadily becomes less and less attached to the rest of society and to reality. I think this obvious and disconcerting decline in Billy's mental state can be attributed to the psychological damage done to him during the war. By refusing to address this damage, he lets the issue fester and worsen to an extreme point. 

Though Billy sees his Tralfamadorian encounter as what saved him, in reality it restricted his ability to come to terms with his past and essentially became his downfall.

Comments

  1. It's neat how Tralfamadorianism can be harmful to humans, who don't have the ability to see entire timelines at once. While Tralfamadorians are apathetic to current events and resigned to fate, it's justified because they know what's going to happen. Humans like Billy, meanwhile, can't see the future, and being so laid-back is a dangerous philosophy.

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  2. When I first read this book a couple years ago I thought of Tralfamadore was a mental world created by Billy during his PTSD episodes instead of thinking about it as an actual world that existed. I completely agree that his Tralfamadorian encounters and adoption of their ideology hurt his ability to come to terms with his past. One hallmark of this novel was how it felt so unemotional with only a few spots of emotion coming through which is extremely reflective of how people with traumatic experiences cope .

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  3. The Tralfamadorian theories are supposed to help free Billy from his anxieties, so it's interesting to see how they could be harmful. I also didn't think Billy's "so it goes" was the best solution to his issues. Ignoring all your problems only works for so long. At some point Billy should face his issues, but I don't know if he can.

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  4. I also was interested in Billy's psychological baggage, as it seems too important to brush off as "epistemological" in a postmodern novel. Indifference as a coping mechanism leads to many interesting implications. For example, this coping mechanism is not particularly adaptive for Billy, as it does not reach the source of the trauma. I agree with the fact that Billy is haunted by memories, and it makes the novel that much more realistic.

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  5. While I as a reader was pretty frustrated by Billy's emotional distance throughout the book, I don't begrudge him for it, because how could I blame him for wanting to check out after all the horrors he must have witnessed during the war? While we definitely wouldn't deem or his current emotional state healthy in any way, I imagine that he was trying to deal and cope with things he didn't understand in the only way he was able to, especially considering the state of psychological awareness and understanding at the time, it was probably pretty difficult for him to get any professional help to deal with his trauma in a healthier way.

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  6. I think you're right about how Billy uses "so it goes" throughout Slaughterhouse-Five. As much as Billy might want to be a Tralfamadorian, he's a human, and he cannot truly experience time in the Tralfamadorian way. He might want to think that people are alive in other parts of time, but I think there's still part of him that can't separate himself from the idea that death is final. So he pushes away all tragic events that would normally upset a person, and doesn't allow himself to feel what he most likely feels deep down.

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  7. I think it's ironic how, for Billy, Tralfamadore is an escape from the real world, and him retreating to his safe place but if you take a step back, it does more harm than good to him. Also from a reader's perspective, it's annoying to see Billy disconnect himself and push aside his feelings but you can't really blame him because he doesn't want to face those traumatic memories.

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  8. I don't know what stance to take on tralfamador. I've entertained the thought that it exists in the sci fi universe of slaughterhouse 5, but I'm more inclined to believe that it's constructed by billy and represents some sort of escape-thing. I found billy's apathy disturbing as well. It's human to care, and he has lost that. i like the saying "so it goes" though, it's kind of calming. To some level it's good, but not at billy's level.

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  9. It’s interesting to look at how tralfamadorianism had negatively affected Billy. I mean he claims that it saved him, but I think you’re right that it kept him from working through his experiences and just gave him an excuse to avoid it all. I think it would be different if he was actually a Tralfamadorian, as then he would have always known what was going to happen at Dresden and wouldn’t get PTSD from it, but the experience of being able to time travel only after he has gone through Dresden makes everything much worse.

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