Is Billy Pilgrim Sane? Essay

he-goat Pilgrim plays a very influential role as the main character in Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse 5. Since the novel is based built-inly on truncheon Pilgrims interaction with the environment around him, pinpointing wands convey of sanity on the scale of normality helpers the reader determine what is really happening, and what is a figment of Billys imagination. Before making the decision regarding Billys state of pass, one must first establish the parameters of what is considered sane and what is not. What one person may consider insane another may consider pure genius. The dictionary definition of sane is free from mental derangement having a sound, healthy mind. However the general consensus for sane is a lot closer to having or showing reason, sound judgment, or good sense. Once those guidelines ar set up, one can proceed to analyze Billys state of mental health. Since Billy is a fictional character in a book and the man who wrote the book is dead, the only informatio n available to someone trying to analyze Billy is through Billys actions/thoughts/experiences and the speculations of other readers.Luckily one is not required to delve very deep into Billys past originally coming across tragedy. At a very young age Billy is thrust into the middle of World War Two. He is ill render and has no fighting training or experience. During the battle of the Bulge Billy becomes lost with one other soldier and two scouts. While hiking through the undergrowth in German territory Billy is overcome with cold and waits for the eventuality that is death to pass over him and remove his soul from his body. Instead Billy becomes what the teller describes as unstuck in time. This is the first time that Billy ever experiences time travel. There are at least two shipway to interpret this scene. In the first one, the reader assumes that Billy is in shock, is delirious, and has a very vague connection with the outside world. This thought is followed by the next pers picuous idea that since Billy is nearly incapacitated, anything odd he experienced in this time frame did not actually happen. However every Yin has a Yang. The instant way this could be interpreted is that Billys mindhas lost touch of reality to the point it sheds its boundaries regarding time, freeing Billy from the human confines of exhibit time in a linear fashion. Since the decision regarding Billys sanity is based purely on a readers face-to-face opinion.A reader would do well to create a mental tally chart of notes. If the first interpretation makes more sense, simply put a mark in the insane column, however if the second interpretation floats your boat, make a mark in the sane column. Between the first major circumstance and the second, Billy is faced with minor issues that may or may not play an influential role on Billys state of mind and so even though they play minor roles, it is important that they are mentioned and taken into account. While Billy is a prisoner of wa r he is toughened poorly, underfed, kept in a crowded train car good of viral and bacterial diseases and scented with the touch of death. It is during this time that Billy manages to make the entire train car hate him, causing him to draw further into the safety of his mind. Whether this train ride actually affected Billy or not is up to the reader to decide.The second of Billys major experiences that carries the capability to instil a mental illness in an otherwise healthy being would be the bombing of Dresden. While Billy was being used for labour in Dresden, his own country fire bombed him along with the rest of a city full of civilians. Billy waited out the bombing in an under scope meat cooler along with a group of other POWs and their guards. After the ground had cooled, the POWs emerged from their safe haven and was faced with what can be described as the moons surface. Billy was eventually ordered to help collect the bodies for a mass burial. Now, whether it was sitting un derground listening to an entire city being levelled, or the retrieval of dead bodies or both that scarred Billy, it is hard to know. However Billy did have a flashback of the bombing during his eighteenth wedding anniversary that caused him to freak out. However there is no direct turn up that the bombing caused Billy to go insane and only the reader can decide if it was pertinent to his mental stability or not. Another traumatizing incident endured by Billy was the combination of him being the sole survivor of a plane crash followed by his wifes untimely death.While Billy was on his way to an optometry convention with several other optometrists, the plane he is on crashes. He is the only survivor and is rushed to the hospital. When Billys wife hears what happened, she rushes tothe hospital. On her way there she ends up crashing the car and loses her exhaust system. She ends up dying of Carbon Monoxide poisoning right as she stops in front of the hospital. Because of Billys const ant time-travelling, he never really knew his wife too well so the odds of him feeling overly distraught because of her death are really quite minimal. Also because he has adopted the Tralfamadorian view of death, he would probably just imagine that now she is in a better amaze in her life.So even though this may not be the happiest point in Billys life, in this authors opinion, it is obscure that it has altered his state of mind, however everyone is entitled to their own opinion and so a reader may interpret otherwise. Although looking at Billys past may give hints as to his sanity, looking at his actual thoughts would be a lot more helpful in making the utmost decision.BibliographyFindley, Timothy. The Wars. New York Penguin Group Australia, 1977.