Aversion To Violence In William Vonnegut's Life After Death
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After his encounter with Tralfamadorian Billy considers himself as the new preacher describing to the human beings that there is a life after death. Even though he is enlisted to go to the army, and after he was sent to fight in Germany. Actually Billy throughout the novel firmly avoids joining in with the conflict of any kind; he survived a brutal war without carry a gun throughout the entire war. Such is the character’s aversion to violence that when an antitank gunner asks him “what he thought the worst form of execution was Billy [has] no opinion” (26). Vonnegut portrayed Billy with positive attributes, even though Billy finds himself in life or death situation, he is too kind and incapable to cause harm to anyone. In this point of view, he is portrayed with similar features to the figure of Christ, who is unwilling to hurt even the slaves of those who will ultimately crucify him:
Then said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (29)
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “Only a first-rate intelligence can hold two opposing ideas and still be able to function.” After experiencing the destruction of Dresden and WWII Billy has…show more content… Hence from a incompetent, ridiculous and unsuccessful soldier after the war Billy becomes a successful, rich optometrist. During 1968 the war in Vietnam was taking place and more than 500,000 American soldiers were sent to fight there while home life of the American people continued the same and distant from the fury of the war. Otherwise World War II impacted the American domestic calm much more directly. Even though World War II was over for more than twenty years however it seems that the memories of war continue to follow and stay on the mind of the many living survivors. Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five accomplished to write a novel about the war without glorifying or ennobling