Chapter 5 Summary

On Tralfamadore, Billy gets hold of the only book available from Earth, Valley of the Dolls. He comes across books belonging to the Tralfamadorians, where he observes that they contain short passages like telegrams separated by stars. He is informed that the arrangement of the short-urgent texts is such that it encompasses “many marvelous moments seen all at one time.” The books are devoid of a beginning, middle, and end, and the concept of a cause-effect phenomenon is also absent. Billy then time-travels to his twelve-year-old self, when he went on a family trip to the Grand Canyon. The Canyon, and the Carlsbad Caverns which they visit a few days later, frightens him.

Billy again time-travels to the camp in Germany. After getting a shower and their clothes deloused, the names of the prisoners are noted in a ledger and dog tags are issued for them. They are all taken to a shed which houses fifty British prisoners, who appear quite healthy, both mentally and physically. To welcome the new American prisoners, they have organized a musical performance for their entertainment. The Britishers have been imprisoned for four years. During the performance, Billy starts laughing hysterically for which he is taken to the hospital ward and a dose of morphine is administered. He falls asleep while Edgar Derby is watching over him.

Billy time-travels to 1948 and finds himself at the mental ward in a veteran’s hospital after suffering from a nervous breakdown. Eliot Rosewater, another veteran, is on the bed next to Billy’s who has committed to overcome his drinking addiction. Rosewater, who reads Kilgore Trout’s pulp science fiction to escape reality, introduces Billy to Trout’s works. Billy ultimately becomes Trout’s admirer. Billy’s mother comes to visit him at the hospital but Billy doesn’t wish to talk to her. Valencia, Billy’s fiancée, visits him as well. Though Billy doesn’t find her bright or attractive, he proposes to Valencia as her father is an established optometrist and the owner of an optometry school. Billy again goes back to Germany where Edgar remains at Billy’s sick bed. Billy is aware how Edgar will be executed a few years later for stealing a teapot. Traveling back at the hospital, Billy finds Rosewater reading a Christian Gospel from Trout’s novels to Valencia and him: “Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected.”

Billy again time-travels. This time, he finds himself in a geodesic dome in a zoo on Tralfamadore. He is completely naked as thousands of Tralfamadorian onlookers watch him every day. Billy wants to gain knowledge of the ways of the Tralfamadorians and how they manage to be peaceful, wishing to take that knowledge to earth to prevent future wars. The aliens are amused at his question. They tell Billy that the Tralfamadorians are at war and at peace simultaneously. They are aware of how the universe will be ended accidently by one of the scientists from Tralfamadore. They tell him how each moment is already structured and can’t be prevented.

Billy time-travels to his wedding night. He is aware that by marrying Valencia, he will live a comfortable life and also will have a fairly bearable marriage. Valencia is grateful to Billy as she used to think no one would ever marry her. After they make love, Valencia questions Billy about the war. He time-travels to his hospital bed in the prison camp. Billy finds other American soldiers very sick; Kurt Vonnegut being one of them. Billy then briefly travels to his father’s funeral and is again back at the camp. The next morning, Paul Lazzaro is brought to the hospital with a broken arm. He has tried to steal from a British officer that took a violent turn. A German major, who is visiting the hospital for exchanges with the British, reads aloud from a monograph by Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American playwright turned Nazi propagandist, about the pathetic state of American soldiers, who have no respect either for themselves or their superiors. Kurt Vonnegut being one of them. Billy then briefly travels to his father’s funeral and is again back at the camp. The next morning, Paul Lazzaro is brought to the hospital with a broken arm. He has tried to steal from a British officer that took a violent turn. A German major, who is visiting the hospital for exchanges with the British, reads aloud from a monograph by Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American playwright turned Nazi propagandist, about the pathetic state of American soldiers, who have no respect either for themselves or their superiors.

Billy is back again on Tralfamadore in the zoo, where an adult film actress, Montana Wildhack, from Earth is brought for Billy to mate with. She eventually begins to trust Billy and they start sleeping together. Bily again time-travels back to 1968 and decides to return to work. While examining a boy, whose father had died in the Vietnam War, Billy tries to console the boy by explaining the knowledge he has obtained from the Tralfamadorians regarding the nonlinear quality of time and the inevitability of death. This leads to the mother of the boy raising questions regarding Billy’s mental condition. Montana Wildhack, from Earth is brought for Billy to mate with. She eventually begins to trust Billy and they start sleeping together. Bily again time-travels back to 1968 and decides to return to work. While examining a boy, whose father had died in the Vietnam War, Billy tries to console the boy by explaining the knowledge he has obtained from the Tralfamadorians regarding the nonlinear quality of time and the inevitability of death. This leads to the mother of the boy raising questions regarding Billy’s mental condition.

Chapter 5 Analysis

During his stay on Tralfamadore, Billy learns numerous things regarding time, space, and purpose of occurrence that comfort him, given the fact that he is witness to atrocious mass killing in the name of war. When Billy realizes that the concept of time is nonlinear and events in our lives are predestined, where humans are just mere puppets playing their parts in the bigger scheme of things, he draws peace from the knowledge. This justifies the futility of World War II that was otherwise gnawing inside him. He successfully adapts the “so it goes” attitude from the Tralfamadorians, as he realized that each moment in people’s lives is as inevitable as the concept of death. The concept of free will is a farce and only exists as a philosophy on Earth. And since time is nonlinear, one can visit the moments as many times as possible, therefore, equating the moment of someone’s death to any other moment at any given point of time. While describing what Tralfamadorian books look like, Vonnegut uniquely puts forward a comprehensive description of his own novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The book is indeed written like a sequence of “short, urgent messages,” separated from each other by space on the page, just like the books on Tralfamadore that have stars instead of spaces as sections separators. Like Slaughterhouse-Five, the Tralfamadorian books lack a beginning, a middle, or an end, and don’t have the concept of the cause-effect phenomenon. Vonnegut further explains the nature of his writings. His dismissal of the cause-effect phenomenon is plausible when he states at the beginning of the novel that there is “nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.” The dependence on “urgent messages” of many interconnected moments arises from the absence of a linear, rational narrative.

Although previously comforted by the idea of a lack of free will, Billy realizes the danger that lies with the absence of such freedom. When an American soldier is targeted by a German guard, he raises a vital question: “Why me?” The German guard promptly replies: “Vy you? Vy anybody?” The utterance reflects the lack of any semblance of accountability that comes with the “so it goes…” attitude. The protagonist too raises the same question while he is being abducted by the aliens. When Billy discovers the novels of Kilgore Trout through Eliot Rosewater, it becomes a welcome escape for him. There is a thread that binds both these men: both are survivors of inhumane, excruciating horror. Thus, the readers realize the urgency of their need to reinvent their lives. It is highly possible that the entire idea around Tralfamadore might be a figment of Billy’s imagination. Shortly after he indulges in Trout’s novels, Billy admits that he is losing his grip on reality. After the war, it is impossible to return to normalcy as war changes people and their perspectives toward life forever. Perhaps, this imaginative world shaped by his readings of Trout’s novels is a way of dealing with trauma.