Billy Pilgrim: The Anti-War Hero

In Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut, the “main” character is known as the anti war hero. Billy expenses many tragedies, witch turns him into an anti war hero. Billy undergoes many tragic events in his life which changed the way his life ended after he got back from the war. Billy has many characteristic of a shakespearean hero, because he was a protagonist that dealt with fatal conditions. It 's said that a shakespearean tragedy is an “ noble protagonist… placed in a stressful heighten situation that ends with a fatal conclusion” (Wikipedia). Which is why Billy Pilgrim can be displayed as a Shakespearean tragedy.

Billy Pilgrim could be portrayed as a protagonist in the ways he faced with leaving to go fight in a war he 's not …show more content…
He also become unstuck with time with the Traliformans, who know how everything is the human life will end. One quote that stuck out to me that shows how much Billy really suffered and faced stress was “They made Billy get out of the wagon and come look at the horse. When Billy saw the means of his transportation, he bursted into tears. He hadn 't cried about anything else in the whole war.”(Vanguart 197) This quote stuck out to so much because it shows how much pain he was exposed to during the war. Its also because it requires deeper thinking to what is actually going on around him that was never said. Not to mention how he had to go everyday with no one liking him and not being able to talk about how he feels. Which would definitely fit in the shakespearean tragedy because in many shakespeare stories the main character is alone with the problems they face and hold everything in alone by themselves. In the character analysis from Cliffsnotes they stated “During his stint in the army, he is lost behind enemy lines with no weapon, no coat, no helmet, and no boots, a wretched figure stumbling through the snow and the cold” Cliff Notes continued to say how billy was “ the fool who was taken advantage of “ These statements is exactly why Billy is a …show more content…
Billy definitely had many traits to be a shakespearean hero, from being a protagonist to dying a horrific death. Billy has taught us that just because you aren 't the typical hero who saves everyone and ends up living happily ever after doesn 't mean that you aren 't in certain aspects the hero. There’s many people who would say Billy was a bad person who deserved what he got, I on the other hand believe that yes Billy was definitely messed up and wrong in many places but he just did what any human would do to better himself and make sure he ended up the best he could, because what else was he to do with being treated that way he was.