Two Worlds

In Slaughterhouse Five, we meander through the life of Billy Pilgram. Billy is an eye sore for batte fields and frankly a giant WTF in general. His appearance and mannerisms seem so incongruous with how we view a traditional soldier, or even a traditional protagonist. Yet, we find ourselves connecting with Pilgram, wondering if we too would be the same as Billy were we in his shoes. Of course, none of this connection with Billy Pilgram really addresses the reasons as to why Vonnegut has us time traveling to Tralmafadore or into Billy's life past, present, and future. Why does Vonnegut even bother writing this novel at all when he seems to be undermining any chance he believes the novel has at being taken seriously. For that matter, if Vonnegut wants to write about a distant planet and a misanthropic, naive man, why is he throwing them together in the same novel and why does it seem to almost work?

My theory, much like many who have made similar comments in discussions, is that Vonnegut is trying to bring across two main points both of which work well together but maybe can't be written about in the same setting. We have "War Pilgram", whose adventures in World War II are viewed with the innocence of a five year old and presumably the attention span of a goldfish. To me, this Pilgram is meant to establish the shock of war and demonstrate who exactly is sent into combat. "War Pilgram" gives the novel "war novel" or "anti war novel" cred (depending on how you read it) and therefore, by extension, anything that happens to Billy after the War while he is on Earth is merely War Billy that has come home from the war.

On the other hand, we have Tralmafodrian Billy whose main point is to, I suppose, show that humanity prevails and that humans are a selfish race. It's all fine and dandy, but I can't seem to figure out why these two morals of the story seem to work together so seamlessly. After all, it should seem odd that the two fit together. I think that the sheer differences in how the morals of the story are reached coupled with the veiling via PTSD help Vonnegut kill two birds with one stone in this novel.