Powerless Emotion

Chapter three of Vonnegut’s novel narrates how the Germans have captured Billy Pilgrim, but so it goes. Without any emotion or thought of escape, pain, love or anything, Billy Pilgrim simply goes with the rest of prisoners of war. Today hundreds of people are sequestered by terrorist groups, guerrillas, and criminals or captured by the authorities and I guess everyone or almost everyone at least thinks of freedom. Pilgrim looks like he feels life is meaningless, but maybe this could be because of one of the following options: 1. That’s how he sees life 2. Because the war has “deteriorated” him in every possible way 3.It was just Billy was like that. I feel a little pity for Pilgrim because of all his disgrace. He is in war, after being sick his enemies capture him, then aliens, after he reestablished his life after the war he was lonely and senile. Probably he feels like the most fortunate and happy man but I don’t see him like that. As I said I feel pity. In Spanish, some people say “cada loco en su cuento” which translates to “Every crazy one is in their own story”. Maybe its true that everyone has his or her own personal and maybe weird way of being happy and Billy Pilgrim is just an example of an insane person who is only understood by himself.

Billie’s way of not feeling reminds of Dr. Manhattan, a character from “Watchmen” (the original comic) written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Dr. Manhattan is some atomically powerful blue man that can see the future and could have prevented a man of trying to make a utopia after he killed millions of people but he decided he would rather leave Earth. Emotionless he left all his life in the past and disappeared. Pilgrim is careless and simply survives (because probably he isn’t an atomically powerful blue man), and the Tralfamadorians then kidnapped him. For me Dr. Manhattan and Vonnegut’s soldier are certainly similar in one way or another. I never got to know what happened to Dr. Manhattan after he left for another Galaxy because that was the end of the comic, but fortunately I will know what happened to Billy when he went for a ride in outer space in the next chapter.