Billy Pilgrim Thesis

Billy Pilgrim is born in Ilium, New York in 1922 to an optometrist and his wife. He does well in high school and goes to optometry school. Soon afterwards, he is drafted into WWII where he becomes a chaplain’s assistant to avoid fighting. Shortly before Billy is sent to Europe, his father is killed while hunting. Upon his arrival, Billy is sent to the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and taken prisoner by Germans almost as soon as he got there. Soon before being captured, he experiences his entire life in an instant. Billy is forced to walk many miles with other Prisoners Of War(POW) to a train which takes him to a POW camp in Germany. They are treated very well at the camps and have a surplus of food due a to a paperwork error early in the war. Billy has a mental breakdown and while in the hospital on medicine, becomes ‘unstuck in time’, experiencing parts of his life at random. …show more content…
Prisoners are forced to work a large array of jobs. One night, the city is firebombed by the Allies and almost all of the city is destroyed and the inhabitants killed. The only survivors seem to be Billy and the rest of the POWs who were kept in an underground meatlocker. The bombs incinerated nearly 150,000 people. Soon after, Russians reach the city and Billy is sent home. Billy finishes optometry school in Ilium. He marries Valencia Merble, the daughter of the school’s founder. After another nervous breakdown, Billy admits himself to a veteran’s hospital where he has shock therapy. While staying there, he becomes engrossed in the science fiction novels of Kilgore Trout, whom he is introduced to by another patient. Billy states, “His prose are awful. It’s his philosophy that’s good.” After rejoining society, he is set up in the optometry business by his father-in-law. Billy and Valencia have two children and become