Happy Ending?

According to some movies, fairy tales always have a happy ending. Vonnegut states “Billy Pilgrim was Cinderella, and Cinderella was Billy Pilgrim.”(Pg. 145) Why would he compare him to Cinderella, seeing the different circumstances in which they are both living? What message was he trying to send us? Since the moment I read that phrase I was in disagreement with him since they are living in complete different situations. Apparently, Vonnegut was able to see a resemblance between them and this got my thinking about the ending of the book. I already knew that Cinderella was going to have a happy ending, so does this means that the same will happen to Billy?
As I kept on with my reading, I realized that the book wasn’t going to have a good ending since nothing good comes out of a war. War wounds a lot of people and even though time helps them heal, the scars will never disappear.

I was disappointed with the ending of the book. The entire time we were always looking for answers and we were trying to find the lesson that Vonnegut wanted to sent us, but after closing the book I just ended up having even more questions. The last pages describes the death of many of the soldiers, he explains these events in a few words and finishes it with a “so it goes”. Making me believe that so many died that he no longer cared and seeing someone die was as to us seeing a kid playing outside. The last sentence of the book is: “One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, Poo-tee-weet?” (Pg.215) In my opinion I think that he ended up with this sentence so that we can see how non sense the war was. Dresden was so destroyed, that the entire city was quit and they could only hear the surviving birds.

I really enjoyed reading this book because it gave us a different perspective from World War II. It not only describes to us the horrible events that happened during the war, but it also described Billy´s life before and after. This helped us see how the war impacts and changes completely the life of a person. Even though Billy didn’t had the happy ending he would had probably gotten if it wasn’t for the war, he still was a survivor of the war and is probably admired by many.
Vonnegut made me realize and take into account that not many of us appreciate the work that the soldiers in war do. They are putting their lives ahead of the others and they are willing to have a dramatic change in their lives in order for the rest of us to enjoy it.

Interpretation

I agree with Manuela’s blog Meaning, all of the words have the same meaning but we all interpreted them in different ways. Does that mean that we are wrong? No, it just clarifies that we all have different perspectives of the situation. As mentioned in Slaughterhouse Five, Billy believes everything the Tralfamadorians tell him, while Barbara believes that he is insane. Our past is what creates us and with our knowledge, we interpreted each situation differently. Billy’s past is nothing like Barbara’s and this is something one should take into account before judging either of them. Some of us say that we would like to erase our past, but would we be the person we are now a day without our past? Some people might think that the answer for everything is traveling back in time to correct the mistakes, while others prefer to accept it and move on. This is just another example of two different perspectives of moving on.

In life we come across situations where we have to take a decision in order to move on. What might have been the right choice for some, it might have been the incorrect for others. Our decisions shouldn’t be based on others ideologies because we are all unique and we shouldn’t be afraid to stand up against others. As Manuela questioned, why do all of the words have to be interpreted in the same way? Can’t we create our own meaning without being judged by the rest? I believe that different is better, since it has more meaning to go against the crowd than with it.

Looking from the Outside

During and after a war we only talk in plural. On the news and newspaper, the headlines say: Today 300 more soldiers died. The numbers are so big and appear so much that we start forgetting and seeing all of the soldiers as just another one. We don’t realize that each of those soldiers had a family waiting for them and they were putting their lives in front of the others. I don’t believe that this is fair and each soldier must be recognized for its courage and abilities. “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” shows a great example of how the leader’s main goal was to win and if one soldier died there should be another one ready to replace him. He states: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” We can see how useless the soldiers felt in war, if they only knew that if it weren’t for them our countries might be on crisis. On the other hand, when prisoners, they were treated as animals and sometimes even objects. In Slaughterhouse Five they describe how Billy was treated like a dog when he was a captive from the Americans. “Billy was told to hang the tag around his neck along with his American dogtags, which he did.”(Pg.92) Why treat them like animals if they are just like them but with a different ideology? As they suffer and miss their families we are looking from the outside and paying attention to the propagandas. All of the propagandas had a hidden message and they only showed what would work as a favor for them. They will put positive aspects of the war to get the support from the rest of the nation. “They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun.” (Pg.94) They knew that the only way to captive the attention of the rest was by making war look as something good. Would things might have been different if they hadn’t lie? The lies are meant to be uncovered, so why lie in the first place?
In Colombia there are thousands of soldiers living in the jungle sacrificing their lives for ours. When do we thank them? Do we even think of them and their families? We completely ignore them and we don’t appreciate what they do for our country. So next time we have the opportunity to meet them we should make them feel priceless.

With What Eyes Are You Watching?

We live in a society where everyone has a different perspective about the world. That’s why one should always listen to the two parts of the story, since each person sees the situation with a different point of view. What is the right choice for some, it’s the wrong one for others.

“And Tralfamadorians don’t see human beings as two-legged creatures, either. They see them as great millipedes- ´with babies´ legs at one end and old people´s legs at the other.” (Pg. 87)
If you ask a person living on Earth they will probably say that they see humans as normal creatures with two arms, legs, and eyes. Billy sees the Tralfamadorians as living creatures and he is able to socialize with them, but Barbara isn’t able to see them and believes that his father is crazy. In order to discover if the Tralfamadorians exist one should listen and see the perspective from Billy and then Barbara. You can only confirm the truth after seeing all of the different point of views, but at the end the truth is never completely uncover. Who guaranties to us which side is the right one? How do we know who is telling the truth? No one can. It’s up to us what we want to believe in, it’s our choice and nobody can judge us for our decisions because they don’t know the entire story of our lives, and as I mentioned before we all have different perspectives. I believe that Barbara shouldn’t be so harsh on Billy and she should let him believe in whatever he wants. It might not seem the normal thing for her, but for Billy it is. One should be able to tolerate all kind of ideologies and have the freedom of speech. In some countries, like Cuba, we can see how the society is allowed to believe in one way of government and in order to have a pleasant life they have to believe in what their leader, Fidel Castro, believes. Is this fair? No. Castro should take into consideration all of the different ideologies and this way create a better society.

We create our own perspectives, it’s up to us if we are letting others change our way of thinking.

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Nelson Mandela

Rewind. Play. Forward.

In times we wish for our lives to be like a movie, were we are able to pause it, rewind it, and forward it whenever we want. This way we could skip the obstacles and appreciate the good moments, but what will be the purpose of life if we could control it?

By rewinding your journey of life you could have the chance to correct your mistakes, but is it worth it? In Slaughterhouse Five they mention that “He (Billy Pilgrim) came slightly unstuck in time, he saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again.” (Pg. 73) He probably did this in order to understand the meaning of war, trying to understand why million lives were taking away and how it wasn’t worth it because nobody won at the end. Why recapture images that only bring bad memories? From my understanding of the book, as soon as Billy stars watching the movie he enters into his own world of the Tralfamadorians meaning that he is not in a good state of mind. This shows the huge effects that the war had on him and watching those kind of movies just makes his situation worse.

As Billy enters his world of Tralfamadorians he stars asking “why me?” This is a question we have all had throughout are lives and its one that can’t be answer. We can’t define our destiny our job is to accept it and take the most out of it. For some it’s difficult to accept the fact that some questions just can’t be answered. In this case, the Tralfamadorians, were able to give a concrete answer. They said: “Why you? Why us in matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is.” (Pg. 77) I believe that life is simple, it’s just that we all make sure to make it complicated.

Rewind our past to learn, pause the moments to appreciate, and forward your life to accept your destiny.

Facing Reality

In time of danger we all react in different ways, it all depends on who our brains respond to what is happening around us. In the case of Billy his mind his completely block and he starts travelling to the past. Nobody can wake him, it’s up to him when he wants to come back and face reality. Many of us consider travelling as moving from one place to the other, but while reading Slaughterhouse Five I realized that recapturing memories can also be consider as travelling. I imagine that Billy wanted to keep travelling for eternity, but life is about waking up and facing the dangerous reality.

Last weekend I had lunch with my mom and grandmother and they started telling me how my great grandmother suffered the same way Billy did. Her mind would suddenly take her back to the war. She would forget that the war is over and she would start screaming BOMBS! I was able to see how this kind of events might mark a person for their rest of their lives. Even though she didn’t fought in World War II she had to experience it all. She had to pass through difficult times where they only had a piece of bread for a family of six. This affected her way of life after the war, she would appreciate every moment in life and wouldn’t complain. She never wanted anything new because she had enough with her one pair of shoes.
As I was reading slaughterhouse five I instantly started thinking about my great grandmother and in a way I understood what Billy was going through. Even though I didn’t had the opportunity to get to know her I knew that she was a person one should follow. She was able to survive a war and at the same time raise a family. She was able to do so by facing reality.

What If?

Some days we wake up and wonder what if we would be living somewhere else, what if we had never met, etc. In my opinion this a question that we should try to avoid because we have to take full advantage of our lives because we only have one. So why waste it wandering about what might have been.

In Slaughterhouse Five we can see how desperate Barbara is with her father, Bill. After the airplane crash he was never the same person. He starts imagining things and the things he says no longer make sense. Even though Barbara doesn’t mention it, we can see her desperation in her voice when she talks to her father. She is probably wondering how her life might have been if Bill wouldn’t have been on that plane. On the other hand the author explains how Weary and Bill are travelling to their past and trying to understand exactly what happened to them. In a way I understand why they would like to go back, we wonder all the time what would have happened if we would had taking a different path in life. What is done is done, and the past is meant to keep within us. Off course we would all like to go back and correct our mistakes, but unfortunately that can’t happen so why stay wandering about the past. A friend once told me “our eyes are placed in the front because it is more important to look ahead than to look back.” We should all apply this quote to our lives because life is full of turns and surprises and it is up to us which path in life we want to take. It is up to us how much advantage we want to take out from each day.

The Past Whispering In Our Ears

This weekend I started reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Right after I read the first sentence I knew that this book was going to take us to the past. Even though we sometimes try to forget about the past, without it we wouldn’t be the persons we are now a days.
Mary O’Hare caught my attention when she said: “You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more if them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs".
She believes that if they publish this book about Dresden and then produce a movie, people would start admiring wars and wouldn’t see the negative aspects from it. Mary probably had bad experiences in war and she doesn’t want for her kids to have to pass through the same. The soldiers the kids watch in the movies will become into their role models leading them to war. What’s the point of a war? Why keep promoting it? As the years pass by we have all realized that in war everybody loses, so why keep insisting on it?

In a way I can relate with Mary. Ten years ago a lot of innocent people died due to an act of terrorism known as 9/11. None of us want to go down that memory lane, since we would only see desperate families that lost a loving one. With this event we learned that by standing together you can make a better and bigger impact on the rest of the world. The only way the society was able to manage it so moderate was because thanks to our ancestor’s mistakes we knew that war wasn’t the solution. Looking at the past might bring you bad, but at the same time good memories. How could we evolve without learning from past mistakes?

The Perfect Life by John Koethe

Perfection can’t be achieved. We can work on getting the things the best way possible, but one can’t raise the bar of perfection. As we get older we start seeing the real world, and all of the things we considered wonderful are now becoming black and white. The colors in life that we once saw are vanishing and a hole starts growing inside us. This is how John Koethe describes life and he is desperate to find a way back to his perfect life. Many of us can relate to him because we have all felt lonely and desperate at times. When things don't go our way, we start questioning life and regretting our past. What is done is done, one should be able to move on and focus on the present because life is too short to be living with regrets. In the other hand we can't forget about the past because that's what created the person we are now a days. By overcoming our past we become a stronger person which helps us make better decisions in the future.
It appears to me that John wants to be a kid again, where the hardest decision was to choose with crayon to use to draw. Now, as an adult, the decisions we take might decide the rest of our lives. Sure, life was easier when our parents took care of everything but life is made up of different stages each with positive and negatives aspects. It’s our choice if we want to enjoy and take the correct path or fantasize about the past.