Almost everyone wishes they could travel through time, either to see their future, or change mistakes they made in the past. In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time, and so he flickers back and forth between different times. Although, he doesn't have control over the time and destination yet. Some people say that Billy has just been through so many traumatic experiences that he is imagining flipping through time, or is making all this events up, such as in the case of the Tralfamadorians.
I believe that Billy Pilgrim has in fact become unstuck in time. The time travelling seems to be based on his time in the war, but it is interspersed with events later in his life, so he is going forwards in time, and then back to the present. If he was imagining it, he wouldn't be able to see events later in his life, he would only be able to see present or past events. He already knew the Tralfamadorians were coming, "Billy now shuffled down his upstairs hallway, knowing he was about to be kidnapped by a flying saucer" (72).
When Billy is in his house, sobbing on his bed, he is brought back to Luxembourg where "[i]t was a winter wind that was bringing tears to his eyes" (63). The book says that Billy frequently starts crying on his bed, and the time that we witness him crying on his bed, it is during a transition to a time in the war that made him cry. So it seems to be that what is happening on one side of the transition can effect the other side.
By: Rachel Cutler
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