The Assignment

Revised:

Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, traces the story of a World
War II survivor named Billy Pilgrim.  In the novel, Billy becomes
"unstuck in time"; randomly and erratically being transported to different
points in his life.  On the face of it, Slaughterhouse Five is an anti-war
novel.  It shows the effects, somewhat dramatized, that Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder can have on a soldier after returning to civilian life. 
However, if this book is only read as an anti-war novel, then many of its best
qualities never come to light, and many of its best ideas are never
revealed.  In this soundlist, I certainly want to discuss the anti-war
sentiments, because they do play an important role in shaping this book. 
However, I want to mainly focus on the character of Billy Pilgrim
himself.  Writing him off as a simple broken toy sells many of his
wonderful ideas short.  If readers suspend their disbelief even
temporarily, believe he really was unstuck in time, really did get abducted by
aliens, and really did become a world leader, then they will be rewarded with
an abundance of meaningful life lessons.  I hope to share some of those
lessons through this soundlist.

War

In the story, Billy Pilgrim is a survivor of the gruesome firebombing of
Dresden in World War II.  He was a captured American soldier, being held
in Dresden as a prisoner of war when the attacks occurred.  The city was
leveled in the bombing, but Billy and a handful of other managed to survive by
staying deep underground in a meat locker, where they nearly froze and
asphyxiated.  This was where Billy's PTSD had its origin.  Emerging
from their shelter, all they could see were the ashes of the city that had stood
there not hours before.  The magnitude of this shocked Billy so much that
he simply couldn't process it.  However, the subsequent trek they make
through frozen tundra proves too much, and when he passes out in the snow we
first see Billy becoming "unstuck in time".  This sensation of
becoming unstuck in time seems to be a coping strategy of his brain to defend
itself from the horrors he witnessed at Dresden.  As he snaps between
various points in his life, Billy almost never gets emotional, and he doesn't
react to the events around him.  He becomes a third party to his own
life.  However, this stasis doesn't last forever.  At the end of the
book, his reverie is finally broken by an image that reminds him of the horrified
faces of his fellow POW's as they witnessed the destruction of Dresden. 
Suddenly the flood gates crack open, and he is forced to confront the horrific
scene his brain has been teleporting away from.  He becomes restuck in
time, and finally sees things with clarity and tumult at once.  With all
of this in mind, I have chosen a short
audio clip of a battle raging during World War I for the first entry in the
soundlist.  For most of the beginning of this clip, the scene is calm,
only short bursts of gunfire and the occasional plane overhead break what is
mostly silence.  This resembles Billy's mind as he is unstuck in
time.  He is calm because he can teleport away from processing the horrors
of Dresden, and the battle inside his mind can remain artificially calm. 
However, towards the end of the sound clip the battle erupts, the silence is
covered over by non-stop gunfire.  In turn, I believe this resembles
Billy's mind once he is forced to process Dresden.  The silence of his
mind erupts into chaos as a battle that was previously suppressed breaks free
and plays itself out.

Birds

One of the most striking lines in the novel (for me at least) wasn't spoken
by a human.  The story continually asks readers what the point of war is,
and why we wage it in the first place. When Billy Pilgrim finally becomes
restuck in time and is forced to process Dresden, this same questions pop
up.  What was the point of the massacre at Dresden?  Why was
something so atrocious allowed to happen?  He pleads for some explanation,
and Kurt Vonnegut supplies an answer that no one wants to hear.  In the
book, Vonnegut suggests that any answer anyone tries to supply to the question
of war will only be as good as the chirping of a bird.  "Poo-tee-weet?" 
This is Billy's best response to the question of Dresden.  Of course, by
this Vonnegut means that there is no justification or answer for why these
sorts of events can occur.  Thus, for one of the sounds on this soundlist,
I've chosen a clip of birds chirping. 
The tones and patterns of the chirping are seemingly random and
unstable, and I believe this helps represent the correlated randomness in
Dresden.  This natural sound is no more
reasonable than the artificial bombing.  The chirping is more than just a
sound of nature; it's Billy's response to Dresden.

Linearity

I'd like to take a step away from analyzing this story as a war novel
now.  Instead, I wish to take the story at face value, and try to dig more
into Billy Pilgrim's personality and characteristics rather than just his
thoughts.  Of course, as I've mentioned many times before, one of the main
aspects of this novel is that Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in
time".  Most people view their life totally linearly, progressing
steadily from moment to moment in a march from point A to B.  However,
Billy is freed from this steady hike, and instead experiences his life as a
series of scenes before him.  He jumps erratically from point A to D to Z
to F.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as it helps lead him to
later accept a perspective I believe is incredibly valuable to readers. 
To represent his erratic, non-linear perspective on events, I have chosen the
song It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by
R.E.M.  Much like Billy Pilgrim non-linear view on the world, this song is
totally tangential to the sort of linear narrative in most songs.  This
song is an amalgamation of odd phrases that work together to create a unified
object, much like Billy Pilgrim's different experiences all work together to
create his life.  Singer Micheal Stipe
sounds exceptionally positive and upbeat throughout the song, despite a grim
topic like the end of the world. 
Similarly, as long as Billy is unstuck in time, he is able to stay in a
happy mood despite his past.

So It Goes

On of Billy's distinctive traits, in my opinion, is that he accepts that he
doesn't control his own destiny.  This is a trait that he picks up when he
gets abducted by the Tralfamadorians.  When Billy is abducted by these
aliens, they share their perspective of the universe with him.  They do
not see the world as an ever progressing series of events like humans do. 
Instead, they see all events happening at once.  Much like Billy, they are
unstuck in time.  However, instead of being teleported to specific
instants of time at random, they are able to witness all moments of time
simultaneously.  Because of this, it seems like a silly question to ask
"Why did you abduct me?" or "Why did Dresden happen?" 
To the Tralfamadorians, there is no why, the universe simply is that way. 
From here, Billy gains a reverence for the fact that what will happen, will
happen, regardless of how one may try to prevent it.  With all this in
mind, I've chosen an excerpt from another book that has always reminded me of
Billy's resignation in accepting the glacially unstoppable nature of
fate.  I've chosen a small section from the book Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy, a wonderful book written by Douglas Adams.  In this selection,
the main character can be heard saying, "'Don't Panic.' It's the
first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day." 
In the same way that Billy learns to simply not panic at events in his life,
this line encourages us to not panic at what may occur in our own lives. 
In addition, I think it's striking that this small piece of advice is said to
be one of the only clear things that he's heard all day, because I think this
holds true for Billy Pilgrim as well in his hectic life after Dresden.  So
much of his life is chaotic, that this may be his one piece of solace.

Passive

Most protagonists take hold of the story entirely, and shape it however they
please.  They wind themselves up in crafting the narrative for the
reader.  Billy Pilgrim doesn't do that.  Instead of creating the
story, he lets the story create him.  In the same way that Forest Gump or
Candide never dictates their own destiny, Billy simply allows himself to be
carried through life, literally being dragged through time indiscriminately. 
He is a passive protagonist, and though the story may be centered around him,
that isn't because Billy has made an interesting narrative for himself. 
Instead, it's because the universe has made an interesting narrative for him. 
To this end, I've chosen the song Float On by Modest Mouse to
represent Billy's passiveness in the face of the world.  The song suggests
that no matter what happens in the world, things will continue to continue, and
that "we'll all float on ok".  Regardless of whether news is
good or bad, it doesn't matter to the universe.  I believe Billy shares
this same aggressively passive stance with the song.  The singer’s voice frequently borders harsh
and angry, mimicking Billy’s adamant passiveness.

The Strong

Finally, I wish to discuss whether or not Billy Pilgrim is a strong
person.  This is a question I still haven't resolved myself, because I
believe it can be taken in two different ways.  First, if we take strong
to mean "resilient", then I believe that Billy truly is a strong
person and a strong character.  Regardless of what life manages to throw
at him, ultimately Billy is strong enough to grapple with some of the heaviest
questions and experiences humanity can manufacture.  He may be passive
about much of it, but despite this he still manages to come to terms with much
of what's happened in his life and gain the wisdom of the
Tralfamadorians.  However, if we take strength to mean "an ability to
bend things to ones will", then I believe Billy is an incredibly weak
character.  As discussed, Billy Pilgrim isn't a person that makes things
happen in the story, things instead happen to him.  He almost never exerts
his own power to try and change things, and he never attempts to interfere in
many of the sad scenes he snaps too when he becomes unstuck in time.  For
my final audio clip, I chose a speech of President Truman declaring that the
Allies had defeated Germany in World War II, and were now turning their
attention eastward.  In this speech, President Truman said that American
forces were "strong", but is this true?  Billy Pilgrim was an American
soldier, and a survivor at that, but few would call him a conventionally strong
character.  I chose this last clip not so much to suggest that Billy is or
isn't strong, but to ask the audience instead.  Was Billy pilgrim a strong
character?  Or was Truman wrong?  Perhaps there is no better answer
to this question than "Poo-tee-weet?", but I certainly hope this is
not the case.

Original:

Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, traces the story of a World War II survivor named Billy Pilgrim.  In the novel, Billy becomes "unstuck in time"; randomly and erratically being transported to different points in his lifetime.  On the face of it, Slaughterhouse Five is an anti-war novel.  It shows the effects, somewhat dramatized, that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can have on a soldier after returning to civilian life.  However, if this book is only read as an anti-war novel, then many of its best qualities never come to light, and many of its best ideas are never revealed.  In this soundlist, I certainly want to discuss the anti-war sentiments, because they do play an important role in shaping this book.  However, I want to mainly focus on the character of Billy Pilgrim himself.  Writing him off as a simple broken toy sells many of his wonderful ideas short.  If readers suspend their disbelief even temporarily, believe he really was unstuck in time, really did get abducted by aliens, and really did become a world leader, then they will be rewarded with an abundance of meaningful life lessons.  I hope to share some of those lessons through this soundlist.

War

In the story, Billy Pilgrim is a survivor of the gruesome firebombing of Dresden in World War II.  He was a captured American soldier, being held in Dresden as a prisoner of war when the attacks occurred.  The city was leveled in the bombing, but Billy and a handful of other managed to survive by staying deep underground in a meat locker, where they nearly froze and asphyxiated.  This was where Billy's PTSD had its origin.  Emerging from their shelter, all they could see were the ashes of the city that had stood there not hours before.  The magnitude of this shocked Billy so much that he simply couldn't process it.  However, the shock of this event combined with a trek they make through frozen tundra prove too much, and when he passes out in the snow we first see Billy becoming "unstuck in time".  This sensation of becoming unstuck in time seems to be a coping strategy of his brain to defend itself from the horrors he witnessed at Dresden.  As he snaps between various points in his life, Billy almost never gets emotional, and he doesn't react to the events around him.  He becomes a third party to his own life.  However, this stasis doesn't last forever.  At the end of the book, his reverie is finally broken by an image that reminds him of the horrified faces of his fellow POW's as they witnessed the destruction of Dresden.  Suddenly the flood gates break open, and he is forced to confront the horrific scene his brain has been teleporting away from.  He becomes restuck in time, and has finally sees things with clarity and tumult at once.  With all of this in mind, I have chosen a short audio clip of a battle raging during World War I.  For most of the beginning of this clip, the scene is calm, only short bursts of gunfire and the occasional plane overhead break what is mostly silence.  This resembles Billy's mind as he is unstuck in time.  He is calm because he can teleport away from processing the horrors of Dresden, and the battle inside his mind can remain artificially calm.  However, towards the end of the sound clip the battle erupts, the silence is covered over by non-stop gunfire.  In turn, I believe this resembles Billy's mind once he is forced to process Dresden.  The silence of his mind erupts into chaos as a battle that was previously suppressed breaks free and plays itself out.

Birds

One of the most striking lines in the novel (for me at least) wasn't spoken by a human.  The story continually asks readers what the point of war is, and why we wage war in the first place. When Billy Pilgrim finally becomes restuck in time and is forced to process Dresden, this same questions pop up.  What was the point of the massacre at Dresden?  Why was something so atrocious allowed to happen?  He pleads for some explanation, and Kurt Vonnegut gives an answer that no one wants to hear.  In the book, Vonnegut suggests that any answer anyone tries to supply to the question of war will only be as good as the chirping of a bird.  "Poo-tee-weet?"  This is Billy's best response to the question of Dresden.  Of course, by this Vonnegut means that there is no justification or answer for why these sorts of events can occur.  Thus, for one of the sounds on this soundlist, I've chosen a clip of birds chirping.  The chirping is more than just a sound of nature though; it's Billy's response to Dresden.

Linearity

I'd like to take a step away from analyzing this story as a war novel now.  Instead, I'd like to take the story at face value, and try to dig more into Billy Pilgrim's personality and characteristics rather than just his thoughts.  Of course, as I've mentioned many times before, one of the main aspects of this novel is that Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time".  Most people view their life totally linearly, progressing steadily from moment to moment in a march from point A to B.  However, Billy is freed from this steady march, and instead experiences his life as a series of scenes before him.  He jumps erratically from point A to D to Z to F.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, it helps lead him later accept a perspective I believe is incredibly valuable to readers.  To represent his erratic, non linear perspective on events, I have chosen the song It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M.  Much like Billy Pilgrim non linear view on the world, this song is totally tangential to the sort of linear narrative in most songs.  This song is an amalgamation of odd phrases that work together to create a unified object, much like Billy Pilgrim's different experiences all work together to create his life.

So It Goes

On of Billy's distinctive traits, in my opinion, is that he accepts that he doesn't control his own destiny.  This is a trait that he picks up when he gets abducted by the Tralfamadorians.  When Billy is abducted by these aliens, they share their perspective of the universe with him.  They do not see the world as an ever progressing series of events like humans do.  Instead, they see all events happening at once.  Much like Billy, they are unstuck in time.  However, instead of being teleported to specific instants of time at random, they are able to witness all moments of time simultaneously.  Because of this, it seems like a silly question to ask "Why did you abduct me?" or "Why did Dresden happen?"  To the Tralfamadorians, there is no why, the universe simply is that way.  From here, Billy gains a reverence for the fact that what will happen, will happen, regardless of how one may try to prevent it.  With all this in mind, I've chosen an excerpt from another book that has always reminded me of Billy's resignation in accepting the glacially unstoppable nature of fate.  I've chosen a small section from the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a wonderful book written by Douglas Adams.  In this selection, the main character can be heard saying, "'Don't Panic.' It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day."  In the same way that Billy learns to simply not panic at events in his life, this line encourages us to not panic at what may occur in our own lives.  In addition, I think it's striking that this small piece of advice is said to be one of the only clear things that he's heard all day, because I think this holds true for Billy Pilgrim as well in his hectic life after Dresden.  So much of his life is chaotic, that this may be his one piece of solace.

Passive

Most protagonists take hold of the story entirely, and shape it however they please.  They wind themselves up in crafting the narrative for the reader.  Billy Pilgrim doesn't do that.  Instead of creating the story, he lets the story create him.  In the same way that Forest Gump or Candide never dictates their own destiny, Billy simply allows himself to be carried through life, literally being dragged through time indiscriminately.  He is a passive protagonist, and though the story may be centered around him, that isn't because Billy has made an interesting narrative for himself.  Instead, it's because the universe has made an interesting narrative for him.  To this end, I've chosen the song Float On by Modest Mouse to represent Billy's passiveness in the face of the world.  The song suggests that no matter what happens in the world, things will continue to continue, and that "we'll all float on ok".  Regardless of whether news is good or bad, it doesn't matter to the universe.  I believe Billy shares this same aggressively passive stance with the song.

The Strong

Finally, I wish to discuss whether or not Billy Pilgrim is a strong person.  This is a question I still haven't resolved myself, because I believe it can be taken in two different ways.  First, if we take strong to mean "resilient", then I believe that Billy truly is a strong person and a strong character.  Regardless of what life manages to throw at him, ultimately Billy is strong enough to grapple with some of the heaviest questions and experiences humanity can manufacture.  He may be passive about much of it, but despite this he still manages to come to terms with much of what's happened in his life and gain the wisdom of the Tralfamadorians.  However, if we take strength to mean "an ability to bend things to ones will", then I believe Billy is an incredibly weak character.  As discussed, Billy Pilgrim isn't a person that makes things happen in the story, things instead happen to him.  He almost never exerts his own power to try and change things, and he never attempts to interfere in many of the sad scenes he snaps too when he becomes unstuck in time.  For my final audio clip, I chose a speech of President Truman declaring that the Allies had defeated Germany in World War II, and were now turning their attention eastward.  In this speech, President Truman said that American forces were "strong", but is this true?  Billy Pilgrim was an American soldier, and a survivor at that, but few would call him a conventionally strong character.  I chose this last clip not so much to suggest that Billy is or isn't strong, but to ask the audience instead.  Was Billy pilgrim a strong character?  Or was Truman wrong?  Perhaps there is no better answer to this question than "Poo-tee-weet?", but I certainly hope this is not the case.

Discussion

In this assignment, we were asked to assemble a short list of sounds that were representative of one  character from a novel of our choice. In my case, I chose to work on Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse 5.  There were a couple of different directions I could have chosen to take in discussing Billy and Slaughterhouse 5 in general.  It is an anti-war novel, so it would be easy to use all of the sounds exploring exactly how and why Kurt Vonnegut was opposed to the war.  However, during my first reading of the novel, what stood out to me was not the anti-war sentiment of the novel, it was Billy's unusual perception of time and his fantastic ideas that came alongside that.

It would have been very easy to spend the entirety of the assignment discussing one of these two aspects of the novel.  However, they both seemed equally important to me, and to ignore one for the other would be to sell this novel and Billy short.  So, I attempted to focus on both of these while still being comprehensive.

For the assignment itself, I attempted to use a variety of different media types.  I drew from music, speeches, and even other books to help assemble a complete picture of Billy.  Partially, I did this to help maintain interest in the piece.  I figured that having all of the selections be the same type of media would get boring, and so changing it up each time would hold reader's attention better.  However, this also meant that I needed to dip into some unconventional media, and not all these pieces may be as effective as the others due to this.

Revising this piece, in general, was a fairly straightforward process.  Most of the raw material I had from the first assignment was still good, with the exception of my "So it Goes" section, which had been broken as the user had taken down their video.  So, in the revision, I recorded my own new version of that clip.  In addition, I spent a good amount of time in the revision attempting to make my soundlist interact with the sonics a bit more.  My first edition was mostly just discussing the idea of the media, and not actually what the media sounded like or why this was important.  In the revision, it was important to correct this.

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