Quiet Listenner

Though socially impaired, it seems that Billy picks up on nearly everything around him.  He seems to take the lessons that he has learned from his alien friends and applied what he knows to his life on earth.  He cannot express anything at all. However, when one does not think he is listening, it seems that he is.  "I was there"(Vonnegut, 192).  This quote for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five comes after Billy is assumed delusional and hysterical.  It is believed by his roommate and others that he is totally insane and not listening to any conversation.  However, it seems that instead, he listens to everything that others say, it is just hard for him to express that.  Additionally, he is very good with remembering colors and different situations.  On multiple occasions, he characterizes that Russians based on their facial structure that no one else recognizes.  He also remembers the orange and black colors of the train cars at his daughters wedding.  Though he cannot communicate effectively, he is very skilled at remembering and interpreting the meaning of things. 

Relationships

It seems that Billy has little or no relationship with any person in his family what so ever.  His son, a Green Barrett, is a person that Billy himself claims he knows nothing of.  Billy even mentions that he does not care either.  His daughter is a person that seems to be the only one who is left to give two cares about Billy.  She constantly claims his insanity, yet every time that she says this, it seems Billy is not aware.  Additionally, Billy has what seems like a fruitless and pointless relationship with his wife.  It seems that she adores Billy; however, he seems to not care at all for him. Even at her death, it seems he did not care.  Going back to the pain he suffered in the war, Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five is trying to relate everything in the novel about how bad Billy is with relating to people in general.  ""He's simply echoing things we say""(Vonnegut, 192).

Billy is insane. It's official. His mental institution stay, lack of emotion, and untalkativeness shows his insanity.  Billy admitted himself into an institute because of his instability. Additionally, he talks I'm his sleep according to his room partner in the hospital after the crash. The roommate continually states his insanity because of his constant blabbering. His wife Lily agrees solely because she wants to please her husband. His quietness is also a sign of his insanity. His quietness goes hand in hand with his lack of emotion. He continual shows no emotion to his wife and other Individual. Even at the death of his wife, he hardly reacted. " Even though her father was broken and her mother was dead"(Vonnegut, 188). I am certain that Billy, from his war experiences does not feel or think like any other human.

Time

Kurt Vonnegut's use of time distortion confuses the reader to to say the least. He continually emphasizes the later experiences that he has In his life by flash forwards. However, the main story is obviously the war. He continually mentions the war and when he revers back, he's in Dresden. Vonnegut himself is a war antagonist. Multiple times he uses a character, Billy, to identify himself in pivotal points to show is anti war views. Without a doubt, Billy is insane. However, his flash forwards are used by Vonnegut as a technique to show what after war experiences do. It shows that post war experiences destroy people. "...traveled in time to a may afternoon"(Vonnegut, 193).

War Camp

It really does not seem that bad at all from the British perspective when speaking about war camps.  " A German Major came in now.  He considered the Englishmen as close friends"(Vonnegut, 128).  His experience with the Englishmen almost seems to surreal.  I am curious to see as to whether or not this whole tale is just another fallacy.  Additionally, Kurt Vonnegut in "Slaughterhouse Five" portrays the Russians in a very negative light.  Though he never mentions the executions and deaths of british soldiers, he does not hold back when mentioning the deaths of the Russians.  The Russians seemed to have the very hard road.  As Billy walked into the camp, the first individual he saw was a Russian man starving and just looking at him.  Also, when he got caught in the barbed wire, a mysterious Russian appeared and helped him.  

Fast Forward.---------------->

To begin, I believe that every fast forward the Billy has is simply a figment of his delusional mind.  The proof that he had been admitted into a mental hospital further proves my point.  In Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five",  Billy has flash forwards that seemingly allow him to see the future.  However, I do not believe that these imagines simply come together randomly. It seems that nearly every time that a negative or poor situation is happening, he flashes forward into a happier or distant image.  " He groped for the light, realized as he felt the rough walls that he had traveled back to 1944, to the prison hospital again"(Vonnegut, 123).  Prior to this question, Billy's wife had been asking him about his experiences with the war.  Obviously, he did not enjoy talking about it.  All the symptoms of what he is going through seems to be half insanity and half PTSD. He is constantly having flashbacks of the time when death was so close.  He sometimes acts irrationally and unexplainably.  Instead of being a traveler, I believe that Billy is just a poor man who is suffering from a disease that makes him believe ridiculous things. 

So It Goes.

Death is evidently a fairly significant aspect in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five".  Additionally, with every mention of death, there comes along the quote "so it goes" at the end of that paragraph.  From early on, the quote "so it goes" represented the transient nature that the alien creatures that abducted Billy believed in.  Now, as the war progresses and more men are dying around Billy, the phrase has come to mean more to Billy.  Billy has come to view the lives of men around him as simple moments of existence and their current "being alive" is only relative to the current moment.  In a different period of time, that person is still alive and well.  Simply put, death has become very meaningless to Billy due to the delusions that the aliens have put into his head. "Billy was the only one to have a coat from a dead civilian. So it goes"(Vonnegut, 82).  This quote further proves that he feels little attachment to the tenderness of life.  I can imagine him reacting to the news of someones death and simply shrugging his shoulders.  Billy, to begin with, was a very disturbed man in need of help.  WIth the far in full gear, all he need now is further reasoning behind his insanity.