Slaughter House Five
Alicia Armstrong
Slaughter House Five Seminar Reflection
During the seminar Elliott Saslow stated “ I believe that Billy Pilgrim has PTSD which started when his father threw him into the deep end of the pool, to try and teach him how to swim. Which has progressed over time during the war.” What Elliott is trying to say here is that he doesn’t believe that Billy Pilgrim was actually abducted by the Tralfamadorians. I agree with this but from talking to Mikael Oliger after school more about this book he gave me a more perspective on why Billy Pilgrim would make up being abducted by aliens. What Mikael said was “ think about it this way, maybe Billy Pilgrim has created Tralfamadore to replace the Germans.” So if you combine Mikael’s theory with Elliott, which is what I did, you come to the understanding “Billy Pilgrim was not really abducted by the aliens of Tralfamadore, he was abducted by the war and the Germans. He suffers from PTSD, and has created planet Tralfamadore to better cope with what he was seeing and going through during the war. When he was captured by the Germans, and sent to war in general he seen some pretty unbelievable sights that only you and I can imagine. He needed some way to escape and he found that escape in his mind on planet Tralfamadore.” That is my theory based off of Elliott and Mikael’s theories.
My thinking changed in the conversation on do you think we are predestined? Or do we have a choice on how our future will be? I honestly believe that we are predestined to a certain point. I believe that the higher power whoever that is already knows what path you’re going to take but it still gives you the choice. And it still lets you make the mistakes and learn from the mistakes you make, I believe the higher power does exist whether it is god, Buddha, or the earth itself, I believe that somehow we are predestined by society for example everyday life, you wake up and you get dressed and you go about to do your daily chores, because if you don’t society, your boss, will punish you in one way or another, if you decide not to wake up and get dressed then your daily chores wont be done and you go a little off balance. I believe that we are predestined to keep a balance in life, another example tragedy and miracle, both exist when one of them happens in every tragedy there is a miracle you may not see it at first but its there my family being in a car accident is a good example, even though the accident took the life of my step mom, the lives of my siblings were saved. And in a miracle there is a tragedy my little brother for example, even though he is alive today, he can’t walk. So you see there is a balance in life sometimes the balance isn’t pleasant or fair but its there. This challenged my thinking because after hearing what Jenna had to say and what Elliott did to disagree with her I came to my own answer, and to do so I needed to find connections.
Connections I made during the seminar was a connection to the movie Matrix, I demonstrated this for Elliott specifically because he was being really difficult, in the movie they give a person two choices to choose from either the blue pill or the red pill, the blue pill I think represents never ending happiness, and red represents chaos and pain and suffering. The people giving you the choices already know which pill you will take, but they still give you the choice. I also from my second paragraph made connections to my family and to the higher power.
I was very quiet at first because I wanted to hear what others thought and how I can build on their theories to come to my own. But towards the middle of the seminar I finally talked and I stated my theories and my conclusions and I built most of my topics off of Jenna Brooks and Jonathan Cannon. So I was quiet but I did talk a lot after that little phase and I made connections I didn’t really invite people into the conversation though, but I did try to not blurt out my answers which is honestly hard for me because I have a soft quiet voice and people usually cant hear me as well so I tend to just blurt out things which is a problem I am working on. So all together I honestly think I should deserve an A on the seminar or an A- thanks.