Slaughterhouse Five Free-Fate Analysis

The role of free will in Slaughterhouse Five Throughout the novel, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut a recurring theme among the Tralmfaldorians and Billy Pilgrim is the belief of free will being nonexistent, alternatively our lives are already prearranged for us, and there's no room to alter our destiny. The Tralmfaldorians concept about life is everything is happening at once, there is no beginning of time nor end of time life is not a continuous path. On the contrary, life is rather more of a spontaneous event, as all time periods are happening at the same moment. This idea constructed by the Tralfamadorians is soon adopted by our main character, Billy Pilgrim hence why he is noted to become unstuck in time; to jump from one time period of his life to another in a matter of a split second for the duration the novel. Reading the novel, Billy Pilgrim scattered through time periods on several occasions, from revisiting the moment he was born, to traveling …show more content…
He is capable of reaching different time periods of his life, as previously stated, life is not on a spectrum but instead is a spontaneous event, everyone is capable to become unstuck in time just as Billy, in a sense he’s a defected machine. The simile used to describe Billy Pilgrim is as well used to describe the rest of the human population, but they are not so called defected instead they are normal machines whom are incapable to become unstuck in time due to their lack of knowledge. In a conversation between the extraterrestrial beings, the Tralmfaldorians and Billy, they mention the complex analogy that humans are just mere machines, “Tralfamadorians, of course, saw that every creature and