Five
Kurt Vonnegut
Innocence makes light an illusion within darkness. Billy Pilgrim would sweeten and sugar his life with rich foods, like milkshakes, chocolates, meats, and different pastries. These would accumulate into fatty innocence. His stomach would be full, his mind would be satisfied and the French resting camp would now appear to be Disney World. Everything seemed like a game, people would die beneath his feet, bombs would terminate lands and the people in it. However, Billy's baby fat disguised the living nightmare with illusions and fantasies. Life was a yellow brick road, full of adventures, obstacles and lively characters. Everyone in the army was highly equipped and dressed with this life-time supply of baby fat. However, after the war, it began to fall and peel. Soon after all the soldiers initiated a new life, they began to see the truth about reality. There was no longer any baby fat covering their bodies and minds. Life was not what it appeared, it was no place for innocence, it was a place for grown-ups.
Billy only matured after all of his baby fat ran out, then it was time to become serious. Veterans who had been once fat, were now scrawny and deadly skinny. They saw their past, which they loathed. Ex-soldiers experienced continuous flashbacks of their previous nightmares, nevertheless, this time they saw a new face of war. No man detests war as much as those who lived it. Only through the experience is a person able to calculate the true dimensions of such monstrous actions. The growth of a person is born from a source of discovery and acknowledgment from living. Those people who have lived and learned are truly content and oriented through life. Only some are stricken with righteousness and the vision of the road which leads to a personal utopia.
Dystopia exists, for imperfection is natural. Only can utopia come to life if one has been able to battle through baby fat and bones. Meaning, innocence is only an illusion. In addition, bones are ruthless and lifeless, for they suction the capacity of light there can be. The perfect human form is no where near slender proportions nor a plump appearance. Just the simple, natural figure is perfection found.
This reminds me of the Grimm brother's story Hanzel and Gretel. They are tempted with a false illusion of food, and with anxiety and plessure over eat gaining a happy baby fat. It is only at the end, when reality breaks in that this false illusion was a both physical and pscicologial preparation for their life's termination. I found your relationship to a utopia fairly interesting as well/
ResponderEliminarI like the way that you compared the mental state that Pilgrim is in with "baby fat." I didn't quite understand the connection between Slaughterhouse-Five and a utopia. You didn't mention any other characters, do you think that they are not noteworthy? That they don't have this baby fat?
ResponderEliminarThis response to slaughterhouse five is amazing. You are right, soldiers realize the horrors of what they've done after the war is over or after they've stopped fighting. We can see this daily too because many of us only learn once something negative has occurred to us.
ResponderEliminar