Comparing Vonnegut's Boy Goes To War

Time usually changes people, for better or for worse. This depends on how others portray time. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut wants us to understand that time is an illusion. This is similar to The Twilight Zone, “Back There” by Rod Serling because in this episode Pete Corrigan also saw time as an illusion. However, “Boy Goes to War” by Max Ritvo is in direct contrast to Vonnegut’s idea about time in Slaughterhouse-Five because reality hits the boy over time. The theme of time in Slaughterhouse-Five and The Twilight Zone, “Back There” are similar because time is like a hallucination in both. “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren't necessarily fun” (Vonnegut 13). This quote shows how Billy has no control over anything and it all just depends on time. To Billy this seems all like an illusion because he can’t control it or do anything about it. “This was when Billy first came unstuck in time. His attention …show more content…
In “Boy Goes to War” the kid goes to war and is happy but over time it got dark and he realizes that this is serious and reality. “Books start out with what the boy calls Beauty—the boat’s still in port. The cats alive. Pantry’s packed. … Far off, men are cradling cracked dolphins. Arrows of fire shoot out the blowholes” (Ritvo). This quote shows how in the being of the poem he was happy but time made him realize that this is reality and bad things happen. “He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next” (Vonnegut). This shows how he has no idea what part of life his life he is going to live in. As time passes, Billy would think of time as an illusion. In “Boy Goes to War”, time is reality and in Slaughterhouse-Five, time is a