Thursday, July 5, 2012

Entry #6: Kurt's Play on Words

Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time once again to find himself in 1968, in the office and driving through the ghetto at the age of 44. "He asked himself this: 'Where have all the years gone?'"
While driving through the ghetto, Billy notes, "The people who lived here hated it so much that they had burned down a lot of it a month before. It was all they had, and they'd wrecked it." Here, I think he is alluding to the war. In the war, people hated the lands around them so much, they burned it, and it too was all they had.
"It looked like Dresden after it was fire-bombed - like the surface of the moon."
As Billy is having these war flashbacks, he begins to realize how his life now is no different than his life at war. Places are set on fire, homes are forgotten, whole neighborhoods are left desolate, and people wreck all they have just because of a burning hatred.
Billy Pilgrim makes yet another testament to his anti-war philosophy after he discusses the city's plans for remodeling by the simple statement, "This was all right with Billy Pilgrim." He uses 'all right', rather than 'alright', because 'alright' has the connotation of something simply sitting well with Billy, whereas 'all right' means that he saw it as right, in accordance with his philosophy.

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