The Recipe to Time Travel

         Slaughter-House Five
            Kurt Vonnegut                

                         Billy Pilgrim is an alcoholic.

      In chapters one, four, and five, Pilgrim describes the smell of "mustard gas and roses." When Billy calls operators in the middle of the night to find his lost war friends, he is comforted by the idea of driving his wife away by this smell.  After this telephone incident, Pilgrim claims he despises recorded music when he has been drinking "a good deal." This could be one of the reasons Billy needs "magic fingers" in order to sleep. Alcoholism could also explain the hallucinations of Tralfamadores abducting Pilgrim, and exposing him to the world of no time.

"Time travel" is a significant aspect or side effect of this horrible addiction. For Billy might enjoy getting drunk, for he believes he comes in contact and relives his special memories. Its also a method this character might use to escape from dangerous or violent situations, he does not want to live. So he goes into a world full of lively memories.

            However, in war there was barely any money to buy alcohol for every soldier. This substance might bring great use to those whose bodies ached, stomach growled, and faces became became purple, numb from the cold. Nonetheless, alcohol was the last beverage a soldier would receive in a World War. This makes one wonder how Billy came to "time travel" while being sober. In some way, it contradicts  my whole theory. Then again, it makes one reevaluate the long-term effects alcohol might have left on Pilgrim's brain. Is Billy Pilgrim naturally mad? Or was it the liquor that affected his mind? What has made readers believe Pilgrim was once "normal?"

            I stand by my word. Pilgrim did have an alcoholic problem after the war. For his dysfunctional personality made him weaker than other veterans to heal war traumas. In chapter four, when Billy becomes miserable after Barbara's wedding, he starts to smell "mustard gas and roses" once again.

          He wakes up that night with a call of strange drunk, Billy claims he can smell the "mustard gas and roses" through the phone. Is the drunk caller Pilgrim himself? Only until he sees a "soft drink" on top of the windowsill, does he notice the bottle doesn't have a nourishment table. For as long as he knows, the bottle can be pure liquor and the reason that its almost empty is because Billy is an alcoholic.  As this "soft drink" reminds him that their is more in the kitchen, he runs downstairs to open a bottle of champagne. Although this drink might have a low level of alcohol, it is something, and it is the only thing left over from the party. As Pilgrim's lips reach out for the opening of the bottle, does a voice in Billy's head scare him. "Drink me." With those simple, two words, Billy retracts and leaves the kitchen to watch T.V. After this, he experiences a movie who's sequence runs backwards. This character might run away from his powerful weakness. The depressions this addiction caused Billy to experience led him to become neurotic when he comes to close contact with the substance.

           Billy has no control over his "flashbacks." Billy has no power over his body when he "time travels." Lastly, Billy can't sleep. Liquor is the reason why Billy can be defined as chaotic.