A Sad Goodbye

So yeah, we've reached the end of the book. Now everything is clear yet not satisfying enough, I wish there would be another event one that would give a twist to the book makes it unpredictable. The biggest shame I encountered when finishing the book was the fact that Trafalmadorians were a complete lie. Well seriously I never expected for alien like green things to exist for real, yet their ideals their way of thinking was so complete. Maybe I’m envious of that perfect civilization, but it also seems kinnda cool to see ourselves heading to our Pre-Ap English class, all green looking, but most of all having the approach Trafalmadorians had towards life. So relaxing, no stress felt.

Throughout the book millions of questions emerged, in a book you would normally expect for them to be answered at the end pretty clearly. Yet when reaching the last pages of the books I had even more questions that I had ever imagined and none seemed to be reaching a reasonable answer. Made me wonder if I was just confusing myself with the text, which led me to reading it over again. Finding myself with the correct understanding of the text, switched my view of the book. We are never intended to now if Billy is really Kurt? Are the events of this book real?

Those questions act like hooks to keep us engaged in the reading. They drill Vonnegut’s (or Billy’s not really sure) ideals into our mind, make us reflect on it. The whole complexity and weird stories helps the author clarify his ideals and as well ensure him that we as readers will never forget it. I bet everybody will always remember the Trafalmadorians. Or hearing a “So It Goes” will ring a bell. Those horrible stories from Dresden and the war will always bring us back to the book. Refresh our minds upon the view of our world and what the author’s ideas, which he so hardly tried to explain through the book, we will never forget.

While reading through my blogs and mostly everybody’s blogs, prior to the last big one on the end of the book, we were always trying to find a moral message hidden in the book like we made it way to princessy and fairytale like. Looked for things that really did not matter. At the end we can only appreciate what Vonnegut told us in this book, we cannot infer what happened next and why some detail were left out of it, he constructed it that way for a reason. Made up of words and sentences he told us his experience of war, only one point of view of the many out there. Yet a shocking one.

Striped Pyjamas

After having trouble trying to find Roberto’s blog and his entries. I found myself reading an interesting idea. Leaving a part the redundancy of the blog and the repetition of concepts, the main idea of a blog he titled “Making Friends” was controversial.

The relationship between Billy and Elliot, demonstrates how complicated it would be to live in a concentration camp. The complications that tag along when having to live with people you have never met and worst of all in those conditions one experiences in a concentration camp. It came to my mind the movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. In the movie a Jewish boy who is send to a concentration camp, has the honor of meeting the son of the Nazi general who is in charge of the camp. They are able to create a very strong bond even though they were from to totally different backgrounds. What makes this movie so special is that the Nazi kid goes inside the camp, in search of his Jewish friend’s parent at the both end up gassed in a chamber. They were only two kids fighting a grown-up war yet they both end up dead while doing simple kid stuff.

Relating it back to Roberto’s blog about friendship in hard times, we can say that people when exposed to complicated situations are able to give the most of them. When living in you comfort zone everything is always all right. No problems arise and life is simple. Yet you can only get to know a person in those complicated situations, and only then is when you can see the real person, the person behind every comfort zone.

Friendships end, but relationships created in tough times are the ones that overcome the worst and therefore will last the longest.

Social Awkwardness

Billy’s lack of self-control result on him having to pay a visit to the mental hospital, yet he was not a visitor but as an intern. Not a very good welcoming well he was tied down to the bed. After receiving a little present called morphine, Billy falls under the influence of this drug. Led into a world of kissing giraffes and savory pears.

Vonnegut ironically uses the morphine to make Billy, a character we already know is crazy, crazier. Billy feels welcomed by the giraffes and does not feel excluded by them. Ironically his feeling toward society, and society’s feelings towards him are opposite to those of the giraffes. He feels neglected in society, an outcast of it.

Seems to me Trafalmadorians and giraffes have parallel feelings for Billy.

In Billy’s dream the Trafalmadorians are being represented as the giraffes. It is almost as if the morphine was the passage into the Trafalmadorian world, the key into entering those ideals hidden in Billy’s mind. Only one pair of giraffes felt extremely affectionate towards Billy. With out his morphine high, in reality, he had never felt affection. He was the outcast.

Which leads me to my second connection. As we know Billy was not the most loved child. I believe the pair of giraffes are representing Mom and Dad. Billy is seeking childhood memories and remorse on his morphine trip. The sorrows of the past are being explained in his subconscious, like Nietzsche said. The giraffes are showing interest, he is feeling all the love he has never felt in reality.

Billy finds a home, a support on Trafalmadorians

and well yeah giraffes, soial awkward (like our friend lina).