OK so, I've been thinking. Lots of people don't seem to like Billy, but I do. Then I realised that I probably wouldn't normally like Billy, but I just hate all the other characters so much, that Billy just shines in comparison. I mean, Billy has given up on life, even in the second chapter, and he's always just so depressed and quiet. When I think about it, he seems to be just a shell of a man, he goes through the actions of living, but he has absolutely no passion for anything. And yet, he is probably my favourite character in the book. This didn't really make sense to me, but then I thought to myself "so which characters should I like?". Then I realized... there aren't really any. In the second chapter there are the two soldiers that abandon Billy and Weary (although I can't really blame them for leaving Weary, they left Billy alone and defeceless with him). Then there was Weary himself, who tried to kill Billy, and then blamed Billy for his own death (irony much?). The german soldiers are a little compassionate to the americans, but at the same time they are capturing them as POWs. Then Wild Bob and the homeless man, who both seem to be dilusional about what is going on. Also the British who are elitest, and don't even get me started on Lazzaro. Anyways, by this point, I really have no one else that I want to root for, so I thought I might as well root for the main character and see how that goes. So I'm wondering if Vonnegut did this on purpose, made a whole bunch of bad characters so Billy would seem better.
By: Rachel Cutler
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