Billies Feelies

There were two moments in Slaughterhouse-Five in which Billy Pilgrim felt strong emotion--or any emotion. The first was at his anniversary party during the performance of the quartet, and the second was when he saw the condition of the horses pulling the green hearse wagon. There may have been more, but I don’t remember them so I’m pretending there were only two. Point is, any instance of emotion from Billy is rare. There’s a good reason for this—Billy has seen all the events of his life and a good deal more of the realm of time than just the span of his life (Adam and Eve???) so he knows that nothing matters. Excitement, anger, and grief are all so temporary and irrelevant. They are experienced and then mostly forgotten. There’s no point in caring about something to the point where it can cause those strong emotions in you because everything comes to an end, and Billy Pilgrim has seen those ends. We don’t know how or when something will end. I suppose our ignorance is bliss because we have the chance to feel those overwhelming waves of emotion and love and pain, the heart-fluttering good and the heart-tearing bad. We have the gift of uncertainty. It keeps things spicy.

            The first moment in which Billy breaks his apathy is on page 172. “The Febs” sing “That Old Gang of Mine,” a song about people you once knew. Presumably, it’s about the friends and sweethearts of your childhood, the gang you had when you were young and didn’t have many responsibilities. As people get older they usually grow away from social groups and settle into their families. Ultimately your spouse will probably be your best and only friend (“friend” as in person who sticks by you through everything). That might get lonely sometimes. In those times, we might long for the companions of our youth. When we’re young we pretend that we are treasured and that everything will last forever. It’s pretty sweet. Billy listens to the song and realizes he missed out on that. “He had never had an old gang, old sweethearts and pals, but he missed one anyway” (Vonnegut, 172). I like to believe that at that moment, Billy realized that despite knowing everything about the course of his life, he had no idea what life entails. The meaningful parts of life might actually be the feelings and thoughts no one else can see. Billy essentially cannot have those. At that moment, he felt the lack of that meaning and felt a loss. Then he had a PTSD episode, but let’s not go into that.

            The second time Billy shows emotion is on page 197 when the war has ended, and Billy is sunning himself in a green hearse-shaped wagon while his cohorts go back to the slaughterhouse for souvenirs. Two horses had been pulling the wagon for several days, and were suffering--“the horses’ mouths were bleeding, gashed by the bits, that the horses’ hooves were broken, so that every step meant agony, that the horses were insane with thirst” (Vonnegut, 196). As Billy waits for the other soldiers to return, a German couple comes up and chastises Billy. “When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into tears. He hadn’t cried about anything else in the war” (197). At this moment, another truth is made understood to Billy—even though we may go through suffering, pain so intense that we wouldn’t wish it on anyone, we can easily inflict it ourselves and turn a blind eye if it benefits us. Despite knowing everything about the course of his life, Billy did not realize he had been a facilitator in mistreating these horses in much the same way he had just been mistreated. He felt remorse, guilt, and a lack of control.

            We would expect Billy to have a lifetime of wisdom, having seen his entire lifespan and more, but these two scenes reveal that some truths can only be felt. It’s like, yes, I know how I’ll die, but I didn’t know I had it in me to abuse animals, or, I knew I would have a bearable marriage but I didn’t realize I would also be lonely. Of course, this entire blog post was written under the assumption that Tralfamadore existed and Billy actually did foresee the course of his entire life before these two moments. It’s entirely possible that SH5 is just a book about a delusional ex-POW who manifests a sci-fi presence to deal with life, and everything is made up including the weird ending part where Billy gives a speech in a football stadium and then gets shot whilst surrounded by guards and their zap sticks. The alternate future could just be him being very delusional and progressively mentally collapsing. Also, I wish I had another blog post to discuss how the Tralfamadorian perspective of time and the way it affects Billy makes no sense (if he always knows exactly what’ll happen next and what he’s going to do then he doesn’t really have control over his actions and in the public speaking example that holds true but at other times it seems like he’s in control? Does he choose to do the same thing every time? Does he have no choice? Does free-will exist in SH5? I don’t know, mate. I don’t know). Anyway, these two moments give us a peep into the vulnerability of Billy.