An Open Mind

Kurt Vonnegut works with intricate measures of time and space in his novel, introducing new boundaries of the fourth dimension and interplanetary communication. He plays around with the plot because he makes the story completely unpredictable. At first it’s almost confusing until you grasp the idea of time, and then it’s interesting and catching, almost as if anything may come up and somehow connect to the story and provide so much. “Billy is spastic in time, he has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun” (Vonnegut, p.23). You see, Billy is sort of an unusual character. He evokes contradictory opinions in my mind. For a part, he seems like a coward, already dyeing in the midst of battle, only kept alive by his three companions which continue to carry him along. On the other part he is a passionate believer in crazy ideals as shown by his theory of the fourth dimension and “Tralfamadore”. He consistently grasps to this illogical reasons to live, ignoring the ones which many would title as the true reasons to live. To me Billy is a symbol of changing and humans in general and not simply a character. He represents time and evolution in crazy examples: “It was a random, bristly beard and some of the bristles where white, even though Billy was only twenty-one years old. He was also going bald” (Vonnegut, p.33). He is definitely an interesting specimen, a victim of the power of time. By mentioning characteristics of an old man in such a young character it mixes evolution in as a theme. But it also makes sense to talk about wisdom, for in many cultures wisdom and age come interrelated, and definitely come across only with time. Wise individuals are always source of stories and narrations, and it is reasonable enough for Billy to be one. The novel will continue to play around with our rigid thinking and all that we think must be. Already early on it forced us to accept a different concept of time and space foreshadowing what is to come. Open your mind reader, for if you fall into the path of rigid materialism as it’s known, you will fall into the abyss of confusion.