Hope

“One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being character (p.164).” Yet, Edgar Derby was one of the few that retained his character. He was a hopeful man. Although death, war and evil surrounded him, he managed to stay positive. When the Englishman appointed him head American, “He said that his primary responsibility now was to make damn well sure that everybody got home safely (p.147).” He wrote home imaginary letters, insuring that he’d be back soon and that he was safe and sound. Of course time would eventually prove him wrong, but for the time being Edgar Derby really did believed that he’d return home. He had something that in war is hard to come across, hope. He hoped for a future, when many of his fellow soldiers had completely lost their will to survive at all.

What exactly is hope? It’s a mournfully beautiful feeling that keeps people moving forward when times are hard. It’s beautiful because without it we would never be able to overcome obstacles and we’d give up at the very first signs of struggle. Yet, it’s mournful because it can deceive and give false optimism when there is none.

In the movie, Changeling, a young boy is kidnapped and his mother goes through countless obstacles to find him. Even the corrupt police department who tried to impede her mission wasn’t enough to retain her. She overcomes the impossible and suffers the greatest pain known to mothers, losing a child. Yet, at the end of the movie after everything she’s been through she still has hope. Unfortunately, she’s never able to find her son, yet she stays positive and never gives up the possibility of one day finding him.

When life hands us lemons, hope is the secret ingredient that lets us make lemonade.

Parents and Their Children

I recently read the blog Taking Control by Yvette Abadi. Here she examines the role of parents. She says that, “The ideal parents, the ones we always like to believe we have, love their kids unconditionally, and would give anything for their well-being and happiness.”

            I agree because Billy Pilgrim’s mom is one of those parents. She was always caring and loving, to the point that Billy Pilgrim felt ashamed to see her. “She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn´t really like life at all. “(p.102)

            Mother’s and fathers are there to coach us through life, nurture us and help us become complete human beings. Without parents, children would run amuck and never form strong characters or personalities. They would have no direction or manners, because they simply would have never been taught any. All humans want to be loved and for much of our lives our parents are the ones who satisfy this need. Of course there comes a point where we seek other kinds of love. Yet, parental love is the only one that’s present from the day we are born to the day we die.

            Although, parents are meant to support us, sometimes there comes a point in life where the roles are reversed. The children must take care of the parents because old age or necessity has asked for it. 

Yvette also examines this topic and she says, “Barbara [Billy’s daughter], in her early twenties, was enjoying the feeling of superiority and greatness she got while bossing her old, traumatized and troubled father around.”  Of course when children take care of their age riddled parents, it should be with love and care just like they received in the years of their childhood. However, many times it actually takes on a form of superiority. This is greatly caused by the uncertainty of having to look after the person who was your care giver for so many years and also in part because children sometimes feel repressed and controlled by their parents, so when it come time to take care of them, they act in a tyrant manner, enjoying the new power they can now exercise over their parents. 

More Than Meets The Eye

His name was Charlie Bucket, he was gaunt and pale, poorly dressed in tattered clothing. He had just walked into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and the other kids were ogling him. They made fun of his pathetic appearance, little did they know he’d soon be the heir of the factory.

            His name was Billy Pilgrim, he had silver military boots, a blue curtain draped across his shoulders and his hands wrapped in a ragged jacket. He walked through the streets of Dresden and the Germans laughed at him. Yet, little did they know that Billy was well aware of their tragic fate. They on the other hand were clueless to the fact that in a short month their city would be bombed into oblivion.

            What if the other kids in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory had known Charlie would be the only one to succeed? Would they have been so fast to judge him for being poor? If they ever saw him again, would they apologize?

            What about in Billy’s case…if they had known that Billy possessed knowledge about the future, would they have treated him different? Would they have sought his advice instead of pointing their menacing fingers?

            Why are people so quick to judge? If someone is too fat, too ugly or too poor, society always seems to tear those people down. They regard these people with dismay and look down on them.

Charlie and Billy were so much more than those people could even imagine, it just goes to show that there’s always more than meets the eye.

No One Is Listening

“[She] told the receptionist that Billy was evidently going crazy.” Even his daughter asked, “Father, Father-what are we going to do with you?”(p. 29)

            They rendered him crazy, with his babble about the Tralfamadorians and his time traveling. Yet, Billy wasn’t crazy at all he was simply stating where he had been and what he had learned. Time and time again Billy was shot down for simply explaining his viewpoint. People had stopped listening to what he was saying, and just nodded their heads at all his nonsense. Yet, in Billy’s eyes he simply preached what he knew.

            Its like sitting in math class trying to explain a perfectly simple concept, however your way of understanding varies from the traditional or accepted ways, therefore making you wrong. Yet, you’re positively sure that what you say is correct. In fact, you are right, just that your method of explaining is slightly different. Billy Pilgrim goes through much the same process. Even those that have his best interests at heart don’t believe he is being rational.

            What occurs is that Billy seems to be standing in a sound proof room. He talks and his lips move and people can see that, he makes faces and people watch them, yet when he speaks no one hears him.

            Somehow Billy maintains his patience through all the disbelief, yet evidently he wishes someone would at least attempt to listen.

Life In All Its Pointlessness

Three years after the war Billy Pilgrim finds himself in the nonviolent mental patients ward of a veteran’s hospital. Both him and his hospital roommate, Eliot Rosewater, have lost their will to live. They are both war survivors, and theoretically this should fuel their will to live. Witnessing inhumane slaughter and senseless fighting should make them feel lucky to still be alive. Yet in truth, this is the very reason that has caused them to lose all appreciation of life. The atrocities they experienced first-hand, sadly transformed their value of life, into a limp, meaningless pulp. Eliot Rosewater expresses these dark feelings when he tells a psychologist, “I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”(101) However, Eliot and Billy aren’t the only ones who address life as futile and empty. When referring to Billy Pilgrim’s morphine state of oblivion, the head Englishman at the war prison camp says, “How nice-to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”(105)

Although, all three of these individuals share their previous war experiences, they aren’t alone in their aversion toward living. In the book Burned by Ellen Hopkins, a series of unfortunate events leads a young girl to hate being alive. Her boyfriend who she claims to be the love of her life is killed in a fatal car crash, her father on alcoholic abuses her mother and siblings, and she has felt repressed all her life. All these events accumulate and result in an explosion that drives her to address life as a bleak, waste of time and energy.  Traumatizing events and experiences can cause this sense of desperation and genuine disinterest. However, there is a difference between wanting to die, and simply not wanting to live. When you want death you’re fueled by anger and remorse, yet when you don’t want to live the circumstances are very different. What usually occurs is that you have reached a point where the concept of living seems pitiful and futile. This state of emptiness more often then not is triggered by experiencing events that reveal the natural cruelty that humans poses, which is true in each of the cases displayed above. Nonetheless, this feeling of uselessness commonly experienced when people no longer long to live, is detrimental and woeful for any individual. 

Free Will?

Billy Pilgrim accuses his Tralfamadorian captor of being a non-believer in free will. Yet, the Tralfamadorian simply replies “I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”

This free will we frivolously put our faith in, entitles us to the power of independent action and choice, but what if it’s just an illusion? What if our paths have already been meticulously carved out for us? Making us meek pawns at the exposure of the universe.

Maybe, Billy Pilgrim was always destined to become a successful optometrist, to suffer as a war prisoner, become unstuck in time, and visit the Tralfamadorian planet. Possibly, the script to his life was pre-written and he was simply an actor who preformed the play.

Which of course would also theoretically mean that as I sit here and punch out these very words on my computer keyboard, my life has already been mapped out. My dreams might come true, just as easily as they might not. However, this might not be a decision for me to make. In fact, it’s likely that I´m utterly powerless in the matter, and subjected to go wherever this predestined life may lead me.

I shudder to think this, that anything I do, say or contemplate…might not have any effect on my life whatsoever. Just pondering this possibility makes me feel drained and powerless. Like, the sickening feeling of getting the wind knocked out of you, causing your eyes to bulge in disbelief and your breath to come out in pathetic little gasps. Although I can’t neglect the possibility of free will being a disappointing fraud, I honestly hope that it does exist and that I CAN liberally set out to write my own story.