A large part of my Humanities course are these great things called socratic seminars. Often when we have just learned something really interesting or thought-provoking (such as done readings, read books, or just studied a topic in depth) we will have a seminar on it, which is pretty much just a civilized argument. We can debate points of view, discuss our opinions on themes, and basically just have a fun time challenging each other intellectually. Here you will find all the information on past seminars!
JIHAD VS. MCWORLD
Reflection:
THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS
Reflection Part One:
Part Two:
BEING PEACE
Reflection Part One:
Part Two (Haikus inspired by Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hahn) :
VIOLENCE VS NONVIOLENCE
JIHAD VS. MCWORLD
Reflection:
THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS
Reflection Part One:
Henry sat
in a plush chair in a small room. The room had colorful wallpaper and nice
wooden furniture not unlike the type that furnished his parent’s home, just
three blocks from where he sat. The room was small, but in a cozy way rather
than claustrophobic.
The chair that Henry sat in was
facing the door to the main road of the town, and through the wavy glass he
could see it was bustling and loud in the midday. Although Henry’s favorite
sweets shop was just across the street, and he could hear a bit mutedly a
clanging of bells, and he could spy a group of his friends playing soccer down
the road, pointing and running and dodging carts and animals, he felt strangely
disconnected from the road he knew so well.
The road he knew well, but the building he sat in not so much. It was a
narrow building squeezed between a women’s clothing store and a successful real
estate business. It seemed to Henry like these two larger buildings were about
to swallow this small, unmarked one. Even the passing villagers’ glance never
lingered on the wooden front door. A door that bore no sign or even street
number. A door that his classmates traded rumors about incessantly.
But it was not the door to the main
street that Henry was interested in then. It was the door to the right of his
chair, a door identical to the first, but without a window, keyhole, or even a
sliver of light beneath it.
Henry had heard so many different
rumors about what lay behind that door, from dragons to ghosts to a man with no
face. He had been waiting so patiently to learn. He had promised his parents to
be brave and mature and to go alone,
although they had pestered him persistently asking if he would like themselves
to accompany him. He imagined them at home, his mother, young, tall, and
gentle, having her morning coffee, her dark hair spilling over her face as she
bent to read the news. And his father, at work by now at the school, teaching
numbers and coloring and manners and rules to his students.
Henry’s leg was shaking
involuntarily; he first pressed his hand against it to stifle its tap on the
floor before tucking it underneath himself in the armchair. He picked a flower,
quite exquisite, as were all the flowers in the village, off the artfully
arranged bouquet on the stand beside him. He slit a small crescent into a petal
and it bled clear.
The door, the interesting door,
clicked, and Henry jumped and crumpled the flower into his pocket. The
interesting door swung open and a short, bald man stepped inside the room. He
was not late, Henry had just been so anxious to see what was past the door that
he had arrived nearly ten minutes early for his scheduled appointment.
“You are Henry Carrow?” the man
asked, looking in need of a nap.
“Yes, sir, that’s me,” Henry said,
standing up from the chair with a bit too much enthusiasm.
“Well follow me then, Henry,” said
the bald man, gesturing with his shiny, spherical head past the interesting
door. Henry stepped forward in the small waiting room and caught the door
behind the bald man. He faced an elevator, old and a bit rusty, with a
chain-link door and a lone, flickering light bulb.
The bald man held this elevator door
for Henry, too, and he stepped in, careful to avoid the low-hanging light. The
elevator shaft, visible through the box Henry and the bald man were jammed into,
was black and had what seemed to be scratches running along the sides.
Henry felt an unfamiliar, fleeting
moment of fear as he wondered how safe the elevator was. The bald man closed
and latched the door with a loud scrape of metal on metal, and hit a lever on a
small, pedestal that appeared to be close to collapsing into a pile of rust.
Henry noticed the elevator did not offer any specific floor options, just up,
or, in Henry’s case, down.
The machine made a terrible noise and
slowly lurched downward. Henry pressed himself against the grated side of the
box and tried not to be sick as the suspended light bulb swung wildly above
him.
The bald man still appeared tired.
“How old are you, Henry?” he asked. This was a question Henry was asked by
nearly every adult he encountered, he suspected that the bald man did not
particularly care about his age.
“Eleven,” he answered anyway, his
voice shaking a bit from anticipation.
“Ah,” the bald man answered. Henry imagined the man at eleven, still
quite bald and round, but more miniature.
“I was your age when I first saw as well, I’m sure you’ll be brave,” he
said. Henry wondered randomly what color the man’s hair would be. He looked at his eyebrows for a hint, and started as he
noticed the man’s brow was as hairless and shiny as his head. Henry made a
silent wish to never become bald.
As this point the small elevator stopped by, as it appeared to Henry,
slamming into the floor. Once Henry had
regained his ability to move, he followed the bald man out of the elevator into
darkness.
The first thing that Henry noticed at the bottom of the shaft was the
smell. The air was warm and potent and reeking. It was also cold despite the
relatively warm day above, and Henry tugged at the sleeves of his shirt. He
wished he had worn a sweater. The bald man swore and pulled a string, and past
the man a light identical to the one swinging in the elevator flicked on. The
orange light illuminated a stone corridor, approximately ten strides long and
three wide, with a large door at the end, filling nearly all of the far wall.
As Henry got nearer to the door, the bald man fiddled with a key to unlock it.
So, Henry thought, whatever the Cost is, it must have the ability to
open a door. That disproved the dragon
theory, then.
The bald man was having a bit of trouble with the keys, so Henry
studied the door while he waited. From far away he had thought the wood was
textured, but now he could see that it was covered in layers of graffiti, years
and years’ worth of dates and names whittled into the door; so many that the
thickly vandalized parts were impossible to tell what was written. The largest word
cut into the door was the word freak
written in capital letters, easily three inches deep. Henry wondered how thick
the door was.
At this point the bald man opened the door with a grunt of
satisfaction. The door slowly creaked outwards on bending hinges, unfolding
darkness and sending a fresh stink of air through Henry’s nostrils. Henry
gagged and pulled up the collar of his shirt to cover his nose. He looked up at
the bald man.
The man nodded gravely and stepped aside so Henry could see. Henry
stepped forward into the doorframe. He felt no anxiousness or even curiosity
anymore, here facing the darkness laced only by the weak light of the hallway. He
was afraid, and all he wished was to be home reading or playing soccer with the
other kids. But he must be brave.
He took a deep breath through his shirt and scanned the room.
At first it appeared to be empty, and he was afraid that whatever the
Cost was would jump out out him. But then he spotted it, in a dark corner,
asleep.
A human girl, naked, hair dark knotted down her back, lay asleep in the
corner. Henry felt a strong sense of repulsion towards the strange girl. He was
about to turn away, when the bald man sneezed from behind him. The noise echoed
down the corridor and the girl lifted her head.
Light eyes, clouded, hopeless, and rimmed with red. Small features, a
light complexion that suggested that if she, the Cost, was let into the sun her
face would become dotted with freckles. She stared up at Henry with despair.
Henry stared at her. His shirt dropped from his face but he did not fix
it. He looked at the face and he knew it. He was sure of it. He wasn’t sure of
where it was from, he couldn’t place a name or a time, but it was as familiar
as his own. Then Henry noticed a birth mark on the girl’s neck; light brown and
shaped irregularly, and a memory resurfaced.
Henry could tell it was a memory from a very long time ago; it must be
one of his earliest. The sun was blinding and white. Henry was pushing somebody
on a swing. The chains were hot in his hands, and he was pushing somebody
small, clad in a blue dress. He was wearing his favorite sandals at the time,
pint sized and leather. The girl who he was pushing turned and pointed to say
something, dark hair flying and curling in the wind. Her lips were pink and
lovely, her eyes hit him with force, piercing and out of place for such an
innocent face. Her hair twisted away, exposing a patch of neck. Just above her
collar was a light brown birthmark.
Henry clutched the doorframe. Who was this girl? A childhood friend,
classmate, sister perhaps? Snatched away in the night to be sucked of all her
innocence and dumped into this awful room. Could it just as easily been her
standing here, looking upon Henry and feeling a flicker of familiarity? He
could not go back home. He would not face his father, who would surely ask if
Henry had been brave, or face his classmates, who gossip and pester him for
hints about the great and mysterious Cost.
Henry spun and ran past the bald man, who looked confused. He ran to
the elevator and slammed the door. Pulled the lever up and collapsed against
the metal grate and put his head between his knees and screamed without a sound,
somewhere lost between the girl below him and the town far above.
Part Two:
In this story, what is the relationship between guilt and
happiness?
In The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, the idea of happiness and perfection is a large theme, and along with many aspects of Omelas, it is open to interpretation. In our seminar, we defined happiness as overall contentment, being appreciative of your situation, and finding joy often. It is no argument that the citizens of Omelas are happy; in fact, they are much more than that. LeGuin describes them as “Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas? They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy.” The author paints this utopian picture first because she knows that the reader will automatically question it. And she, of course, is correct. The reader knows that their happiness must come at a price, it is just not yet clear what that may entail. Because the author introduces the citizens as such complex characters, the reader must assume that theirs is not mindless happiness; that it is, for lack of a better term, earned. That something is happening behind the scenes that is causing this joy to the citizens, and that is where the concept of the child in the basement, and the guilt that it creates comes in.
In addition to happiness, guilt plays a large part in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Guilt can be described as a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, or wrong. In this story specifically it would entail that the citizens of Omelas felt accountable for the child’s suffering. LeGuin writes: “One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt,” and, “To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.” I think that what LeGuin is trying to say here is that, although the basement child suffers for their happiness, they cannot feel guilt because that would taint the perfection of the city. In our seminar we also established that we as humans constantly compare ourselves and our situations to those around us. In Omelas, the burden of guilt from the child quite simply is not acknowledged, except by those who walk away. They all know of the child and compare themselves to the child, but believe its existence is justified, and the ones who do feel guilt- the ones who choose to (or cannot accept the cost of) their own happiness have no choice but to leave. Both the citizen’s guilt and contentment depend on each other’s existence. If they cannot live happily with the guilt they leave. If they can, they do so completely and without regret.
BEING PEACE
Reflection Part One:
What does it mean to live in the present moment? Do you live in the
present moment?
Living
in the present moment to Thich Nhat Hahn is the most essential training of all.
He writes in The Seventh Mindfulness Training, the one regarding living in the
present moment, this: “[This mindfulness training] is the heart of the Fourteen
Mindfulness Trainings, the most important one: to live in awareness.” The training
itself says this: “We will try not to lose ourselves in dispersion or be
carried away by regrets about the past, worries about the future, or craving,
anger, or jealousy in the present.” And also on page 88, “We have to be in the
present time, because only the present is real, only in the present moment can
we be alive. We do not practice for the sake of the future, to be reborn in a
paradise, but to be peace, to be compassion, to be joy right now.” This means
that in order to live happily in the moment, we must acknowledge the past and
future, but focus on the now. What
has happened or will happen is not real: the present moment is where you are and
is the only time that you have say to change, so you shouldn’t be distracted by
what is not happening. Essentially, do not live your life stressing of past or
future but live fully every moment.
I do not think that I practice
this training well, or even at all. I did not realize before I read this, but I
actually spend the majority of my time stressing. I stress about everything: past regrets, future
circumstances, school, what people think of me. Reading this section really
made me reflect on my life and how little time I do spend in the present
moment. I have no intentions of becoming Buddhist, but I do think that the
Mindfulness Trainings include important ideas and lessons, and the idea of
living in the present moment is no exception. I have realized from this passage
that living out of the moment and stressing is not beneficial, and my overall
happiness and quality of life would surely improve with just a bit of focused
efforts on living in the moment. The next time I find myself stressing over
something silly, I’ll take Hahn’s advice and come back to what is happening.
Part Two (Haikus inspired by Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hahn) :
Fanaticism
(1st Mindfulness Training)
It’s a funny thing
what means to unite us all
bounds us in fighting.
What’s
Real and True (2nd Mindfulness Training)
In this world, with such
colors dreams and opinions
will we ever know?
Opinions
(3rd Mindfulness Training)
Every person so
very impressionable
leave them in the dark.
Suffering
(4th Mindfulness Training)
To live suffering
must surely not be as bad
as with ignorance.
Happiness
(5th Mindfulness Training)
A curious thing,
happiness, with nothing else
it can still exist.
Anger
(6th Mindfulness Training)
Tame-less emotions
reign them in and study them
using compassion.
Living
in the Moment (7th Mindfulness Training)
To forget your past,
be in the moment, is that
even possible?
Words
(8th Mindfulness Training)
We are defined by
our words, use only the best
speak only with love.
Speaking
Out (9th Mindfulness Training)
Injustice, might it
be just a lack of courage
or unchangeable?
Politics
(10th Mindfulness Training)
When taking a side
you will argue like children
be aware of both.
Economic
(11th Mindfulness Training)
Imperfection will
exist, your best is sometimes
the alternative.
Life
(12th Mindfulness Training)
What a beautiful
thing, far too precious to be
gone without reason.
Others
(13th Mindfulness Training)
We are all one race
with compassion, we achieve
peace not suffering.
Making
a Difference (14th Mindfulness Training)
What is the meaning
of inhabiting the world
if you don’t change it?
VIOLENCE VS NONVIOLENCE
What’s the best way to change an unjust
situation?
Above All Else
Ever since I can remember, I have been told
by adults that life isn’t fair. At first, to second-grade me, this seemed unfathomable.
In my world, everybody received the same number of animal crackers at lunch and
everyone had exactly ten minutes of recess. However, as I’ve grown older I have
shed the rose colored glasses and noticed the complications of the world. I have
come to realize that life isn’t fair,
that problems can’t always be solved with a Band-Aid, and that injustice exists
everywhere: people are oppressed, abused, and treated unequally. Human rights
have been broken or tossed in the gutter. In an unjust situation, two options
are available. The question to face is this: should you respond to injustice
with violence, or find a resolution through negotiation or nonviolence? The
best way should be most effective, longest lasting, and quickest to achieve. I
have found that there is only one option that will preserve human rights, and
it doesn’t require a gun to carry through.
It
is in my opinion, and that of the United Nations, that basic human rights should
be preserved over anything. The UN administered 30 rights in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, including: the right to work, education, participatory
government, own property, not be subject to torture or inhumanity, and be
treated with fairness and equality, to list just a few. (United Nations General
Assembly, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”) What in this world could
possibly outweigh in worth the cost of human rights? Certainly not religion,
race, money, land, or power... So why, then, have so many lives been lost, and
even more abused, because of these reasons? The book Being Peace states,
“We cannot, in the name of the finger or the raft, kill each other. Human life
is more precious than any ideology or doctrine.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, 91) It is
simple common sense that fighting by means of violence causes much more harm
and abuse of human rights than nonviolent means. During common violent acts
such as rioting or even war through revolt, multiple human rights can be
broken. Commonly broken rights during war or general violence are articles 3,
13, 20, and 21, stating that all people have the right to life, liberty, and
the security of person; to possess freedom of movement and residence within the
borders of each state; to have freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
and to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely
chosen representatives. (United Nations General Assembly, “The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights”) Violence can be more efficient in the sense that
it takes less time, but the result is more unstable and short-lived if it does
work because it is earned with force as opposed to more permanent
communication.
Nelson Mandela, a South African freedom activist, attempted to use
nonviolence as Ghandi did. However, after years of frustration, Mandela made a
well-thought out and educated decision to sabotage against the oppressing
government, abandoning nonviolence. Mandela said in a statement before being
tried for charges of sabotage in 1964, “All lawful modes expressing opposition
to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a
position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or
to defy the government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a
way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated
against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush
opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with
violence… Our problem was not whether to fight, but was how to continue to
fight.” Unfortunately, he chose violence through sabotage. This action got him
a life sentence in prison (he served 30 years) while South Africa still
struggled with extreme racism and apartheid. Even today the country faces the
harsh after-effects of this oppression. Recently, even after the first
democratic elections in 1994, racial tension is brewing and many people in the
area still have deep-rooted racism learned from hundreds of years of oppression.
Recent assassinations of white government supremacists have only elevated the
shaky conditions. Perhaps if Nelson and other leaders had been fully committed
to nonviolence then the resolution would have been fairer. If this can be said to be true, then the
question is this: why are violent means used when there is an alternative? Why
are human rights disregarded when there is another perfectly reasonable and
equally effective option?
Nonviolence
is not always recognized as a feasible possibility. In most situations the ones
being oppressed don’t trust its effectiveness and deem it too weak,
time-consuming, or hopeless to carry out. Nonviolence is the policy, practice, or technique
of refraining from the use of violence, especially when reacting to or protesting against oppression, injustice, discrimination, or the like. There are many ways to practice
nonviolent revolutions, including investigation, education, negotiation,
boycott, resignation, religious procession, prayer, fasting, stopping work,
symbols, songs, humor, and popular noncooperation. (Deats, 9-12) It is widely
believed that nonviolence takes a longer amount of time to reach a goal, and
this is generally true. However, it ensures a lasting result because it is
achieved with communication, acceptance, and open, civilized, and humane
discussion. It usually does not flip the situation so that the oppressors
become the oppressed, but reaches a fair conclusion. Nonviolence does not mean
that nothing is achieved in the protest; it simply means that the ones adopting
it recognize that all humans have value and rights and are capable of seeing
reason. In some ways, it is a much more mature and educated way of fighting.
The ultimate face of nonviolence, Mohandas Ghandi, used nonviolent
methods to free his entire country in India over a span of nearly 25 years, and
his efforts were rewarded with a long-lasting result. Once, when he heard of a
peaceful protest turning violent and killing one policeman, Ghandi fasted to
show his dedication to complete and committed nonviolence. Active Nonviolence:
A Way of Life reads, “Some dictators are toppled quickly by armed guerillas
but others have fallen suddenly to un-armed student uprisings. On the other
hand, Ghandi and Mao both took over 25 years to accomplish their
revolutions…What I am saying is that we must be willing to apply as much
discipline and time and sacrifice to nonviolent change as we have to violent
change.” (Deats, 9-12) This quote shows that nonviolence is not an ‘easy way
out’ but rather an alternative requiring equal effort. Ghandi proves the accuracy
of this with his unwavering effort and disregard for all consequences of his
fasting and actions that put him in prison. This effort and dedication is what ended
up freeing his country. If you are going to commit to nonviolence, you must do
so completely because all your effort will be rendered ineffective if you
switch to violence. Ghandi taught that no matter how hopeless the cause
appears, with perseverance and dedication there is always a nonviolent
alternative.
The extra time and effort of nonviolence are worth it; think of them as
investments to guarantee lasting justice. The only way that we may conquer inequality
without creating more in the process is to accept Ghandi’s wisdom and protect
all human rights, even those of our enemies. We will use nonviolence to resolve
injustice by injustice until the world ultimately becomes a more peaceful place
for humankind.
Works Cited:
Deats, Richard. Active Nonviolence: A Way of Life.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. 9-12. Print.
Hanh, Thich N. Being Peace. Berkeley CA:
Parallax Press, 1987. 91. Print.
Malik, Charles, Alexandre Bogomolov,
Eleanor Roosevelt, and William Hodgeson. "The Universal Declaration of
Human Rights." un.org.
United Nations, 10 Dec. 1948. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/>.
Mandela, Nelson. "An Ideal for
Which I am Prepared to Die." Pretoria, South Africa. 20 Apr. 1964.
Address.
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Erich Maria Remarque
Reactions: During seminar, I found it interesting when our group discussed whether or not Paul dying was an appropriate resolution to the book. It seemed that there were many different opinions on this subject, and many good points and thoughts were brought up. I found one of Natasha‘s comments particularly thought-provoking. She said that Paul still had things to live for, that his death was not an appropriate conclusion, and even that this ending was not fitting. I found this shocking, because I had come to the conclusion that Paul had essentially lost everything that was ever important to him: his friends, his mother, and his love of life in its entirety, and even if he had not been killed in the war, I had thought that he was already emotionally dead, and this perspective made me rethink if there really was hope for Paul. Even though my perspective may not have changed, I thought it was good that Natasha expressed a different opinion.
Response: I think that this book is an anti-war novel simply because of the numerous terrible things that happen to Paul throughout the novel, and because Paul thinks of war so negatively. If this book was to promote war, would the best storyline really be a man getting stripped of all things he loved and then killed? Paul says at the begging of chapter seven (pg. 140, par. 3), “And this I know: all these things that now, while we are still in the war, sink down in us like a stone, after the war shall waken again, and then shall begin the disentanglement of life and death.
The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us:--against whom, against whom?”
This quote shows that even though at this point Paul is significantly emotionally scarred already, he still has hope that someday things will be better; that what he is living now will just be a memory. Because he has such a negative association with war (he looks forward to “the years at the Front behind us”), the novel is clearly not supporting war. However, although Paul may seem positive then, as time goes on he kills the Frenchman, goes on leave (just to find that his hometown drives him insane and his mother has terminal cancer), and watches Kat die. These events scar him severely, to the point that he takes death peacefully. In what war-promoting videos or books does a character die peacefully? Not many. If the author was writing this novel to promote war, he would probably make Paul be patriotic, happy, bloodthirsty, and victorious in order to glorify war, but Paul is none of these things. This concludes that All Quiet on the Western Front is, in fact, an anti-war novel.
Connections: I read a book a few months ago titled “Sorta Like a Rock Star,” a story of a homeless girl named Amber whose mother is murdered. A very different situation that AQotWF, yes, but I noticed some similarities that I found interesting, considering how different the two stories appear. In the beginnings of the two novels, Amber and Paul are much alike. They both find the world interesting and are excited about their educations and life in general. Then, Paul experiences war, and Amber’s mother- her only known family member- is murdered. They both try not to face their respective situations; Paul shuts down his emotions, and Amber locks herself in her room (her friend’s mother has adopted her) and falls into a deep depression. Then, Paul dies as a resolution, but Amber, with help from her friend (a Vietnam Veteran, ironically enough) who taught her to use poetry as an outlet, is not damaged enough that death is the only option, and is able to continue with her life after confronting her mother’s killer by reading him poetry, and he goes insane. Perhaps Amber’s mother’s killer was more like Paul than Amber was.
Lori’s Choice: (Pg 221, Par. 4) “But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts.” I think that this represents the truth of war because this is the moment when Paul finally breaks his careful emotion control, and his thoughts drive him a bit crazy. This is the truth of war because it is not his careful account of what happened, but his actual reaction when he took the Frenchman’s life. For a project I would represent this quote through a collage because it could include both pictures and words to help the onlooker really feel what Paul did at this moment.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-5
Kurt Vonnegut
"Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come un-stuck in time...Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he's going next, and the trips aren't fun. He's in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next."
In this seminar, many interesting points were brought up on the subject of free will. This topic is also relevant to our own lives because, although none of us have fought in a war or been abducted by aliens, we all make regular, everyday choices, and it was thought-provoking to discuss whether or not fate is set in stone as Billy and the Tralfamadorians believe it is. This discussion caused quite a spark, and our group was arguing both sides pretty equally. However, I thought a particularly thoughtful comment was made by Nathan Langford on the topic of free will. Nathan said that we would never know if our destinies were already chosen for us, because it would be impossible to prove, or much less tell, either way. Because (fortunately) we can’t time-travel or possess a fourth sense like Billy Pilgrim can, we will simply never know if we have choice in our lives or not. After thinking about this topic quite a bit, I agree with Nathan, and I believe that some aspects of the theory of no free will are valid (choices do limit a person quite a lot, and the choices we make can be used to predict future ones). However, the argument for the concept of free will has effective arguments as well, such as the question of who or what power would determine our destinies? In conclusion, it is impossible to argue one side over the other when it comes to the concept of free will, simply because they both have equally realistic points, and there is no evidence to support either view.
There is much debate on whether or not Billy Pilgrim actually got abducted by the Tralfamadorians or not. Vonnegut could be trying to say that the entire abduction, (and time changes as well) were simply a figment of Billy’s imagination. On page 30, Barbra is trying to talk sense into Billy about Tralfamadore: “’Where did you get a crazy name like Tralfamadore?’ ‘That’s what the creatures there call it.’” This quote shows how unrealistic Billy’s time-traveling is as he is trying to explain it to his daughter. This theory becomes all the more likely by the fact that Billy didn’t mention his ability to see in the 4th dimention, time-traveling capabilities, or even the fact that he was abducted until after he was involved in a terrible plane crash that may have damaged his brain. These reasons cause the reader to believe that Billy isn’t literally stuck in time; he is simply imagining the changes.
This novel reminded me of this book I read a while ago called The Music of Dolphins, a fictional (although based on an actual case) book about a eighteen-year-old girl who had been ‘adopted’ by a clan of dolphins after she survived an airplane crash into the ocean as a toddler, and had grown up thinking she was a dolphin. She is then unwillingly found by a rescue helicopter and taken to the mainland to be studied. She learns English and is beginning to have a normal life, but at the end of the book (spoiler alert) she convinces her doctor to let her return to her dolphin clan. This character reminds me very much of Billy Pilgrim because they both are very childlike. Both Mila, the protagonist of the book, and Billy have very basic desires. I would say that the largest difference between the two characters is that Mila changes as she learns more about the civilized world, and takes a say in her fate by persuading her doctor to allow her to leave civilization, while Billy remains convinced that there is no such thing as free will through the entire novel.
Although All Quiet on the Western Front and Slaughterhouse-5 are very different novels, they are also similar in many ways. For instance, they are both anti-war novels, they both feature a young, male soldier as a protagonist, and lastly, both Paul and Billy are crazy in their own ways, which I believe is the largest difference between them. In Slaughterhouse-5, Billy repeatedly time travels, sometimes to Tralfamadore. Vonnegut writes on page 132, “When Barbara left, slamming the door behind her, Billy traveled in time to the zoo on Tralfamadore again.” When he imagines these things, he is disregarding his family and things that actually matter. Contrarily, Paul from All Quiet on the Western Front says, “Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with changes of the days;-when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead.” These quotes show how the difference in Billy’s and Paul’s crazy. Billy, of course, becomes literally crazy, imagining aliens and time-traveling, while Paul has a more subtle, depressing, and hopeless kind of madness as he tries to distance himself from his own thoughts. Also, both of the characters become insane because of their experiences as soldiers.
