Coping with War A Comparison Between Slaughterhouse Five...

Earnest Hemmingway once said Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. (Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference) War is a gruesome and tragic thing and affects people differently. Both Vonnegut and Hemmingway discus this idea in their novels A Farewell to Arms and Slaughterhouse Five. Both of the novels deal not only with war stories but other genres, be it a science fiction story in Vonnegut’s case or a love story in Hemingway’s. Despite all the similarities there are also very big differences in the depiction of war and the way the two characters cope with their shocking and different experiences. It is the way someone deals with these tragedies that is the true story. This essay will evaluate†¦show more content†¦Billy wants to die, but like many other incidents in his life, he ironically manages to maintain his life while those around him, who want to live, die. It is during these occurrences that Billy first visits Tralfamadore. Tralfamadore is another planet where time is very different, where he could be on Tralfamadore for years, and still be away from Earth for only a microsecond (Vonnegut 32). Billys time travel is both a sanctuary away from the war and a constant reminder of it. Sometimes Billy will time travel to the pleasant bliss of Tralfamadore where he is married to Montana Wildhack, while other times he is forced to keep returning the same moment in time over and over again. This forces him to not only not forget about what he experienced in the war, but relive it. No matter what he does, Billy is not able to put the war in his past. Charles B. Harris believes that Tralfamadore serves to show Vonnegut’s conception of Dresden representing the inevitability of death as a manifestation of the larger enemy of time. By reinventing time, Vonnegut is able to reconcile with the destruction seen in Dresden. (Harris. Time, Uncertainty and Vonnegut Jr. 231) From the Tralfamadorians Bi lly learns that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. (Vonnegut 34) All moments, past, present, future, always have existed, always will exist. It is just