Vonnegut Explication

The setting varies in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five many times but an important setting in the story was on the planet Tralfamadore when Billy Pilgrim was captured and put into the habitat.   “And Billy traveled in time to the zoo on Tralfamadore.   He was forty-four years old, on display under a geodesic dome (142).”   Later on, Billy continues to explain his geodesic dome that he will live in for six months.   The Tralfamadorians was a new planet to Billy but could tell he was in a different culture.   Billy probably knew that life was different on their planet, so he asked the guide about their society.   There culture views war and other catastrophic events as just something that has to be and they can not prevent it from happening.   Billy understands time different then his wife or the American and English prisoners.   Billy is the only person at that time that had been to the planet Tralfamadore which is the reason why throughout the book he functions differently than the surrounding people in the story.
One character that effected Billy’s conflict was Ronald Weary.   “Weary looked like Tweedledum or Tweedledee, all bundled up for battle.   He was short and thick.   He had every piece of equipment he had ever been issued…(50).”   Ronald Weary was an eighteen years old and appeared to have psychological problems.   He believed that well they were running from the Germans behind lines, that the other two men were part of the Three Musketeers.   Nobody else saw them that way but rather Weary and Pilgrim were alone.   Weary wanted to be a hero and was absorbed in the war which made him an antagonist to Billy.   Billy didn’t like being in the war and was conflicted by his time travel taking back to the war.   After Weary died, he was able to convince some army men to try and make Billy pay for supposedly killing Weary.   This made it even more difficult whenever Billy traveled in time to wartimes.   He is always confronted by some Americans that want to kill him.
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