PTSD is Tralfamadorian Time
When I was doing my panel presentation today with Nhan Tran, we focused on mental health aspects of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-5." I had a burning question that came up while we were in discussion, but unfortunately, we ran out of time to ask.
According to Pheonix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental health, one of the most prominent symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is reliving the traumatic event through distressing, unwanted memories, vivid nightmares and/or flashbacks. This definition made me think very deeply about the events of the story. As a part of my examination of "Slaughterhouse-5," I listened to the audiobook. As part of the audiobook, there was an interview with the author. According to Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-5's main character, Billy Pilgrim, was based off of a real person. This person, who was named Edward Krone Jr., died in World War 2. He took part in the firebombing of Dresden and survived. Following the event, Krone died of starvation (He would not accept food or aid) due to his thousand mile stare, which is a common result of PTSD.
The idea of Tralfamadorian Time embraces essentially time travel, which effectively happens in PTSD. Given this information, I wonder if the concept of Tralfamadorian time is a product of PTSD. Could this be a method of combating PTSD proposed by Vonnegut by focusing on positive historical memories, effectively suppressing negative memories and improving life? What do you all think?
According to Pheonix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental health, one of the most prominent symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is reliving the traumatic event through distressing, unwanted memories, vivid nightmares and/or flashbacks. This definition made me think very deeply about the events of the story. As a part of my examination of "Slaughterhouse-5," I listened to the audiobook. As part of the audiobook, there was an interview with the author. According to Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-5's main character, Billy Pilgrim, was based off of a real person. This person, who was named Edward Krone Jr., died in World War 2. He took part in the firebombing of Dresden and survived. Following the event, Krone died of starvation (He would not accept food or aid) due to his thousand mile stare, which is a common result of PTSD.
The idea of Tralfamadorian Time embraces essentially time travel, which effectively happens in PTSD. Given this information, I wonder if the concept of Tralfamadorian time is a product of PTSD. Could this be a method of combating PTSD proposed by Vonnegut by focusing on positive historical memories, effectively suppressing negative memories and improving life? What do you all think?
I am also interested in Billy's PTSD because it needs to be addressed in order to better understand the origins of the Tralfamadorian sub-plot. One confound is the fact that the plane crash probably left Billy brain-damaged, and we as readers can assume that Billy's story was written after the fact. Personally, since there is an intense controversy over the existence of repressed memories in the first place, I do not really know what to make of this. I talked about this in my blog, but I think that the indifference that comes from the Tralfamadorian view of time acts as a coping mechanism for Billy to minimize the impact of trauma. I definitely agree that the Tralfamadorian view of time is a product of PTSD, and that this does not take away meaning from the novel or Billy's experience.
ReplyDeleteI really like this! It definitely gives weight to the argument that the scifi elements are fictional within the context of the book. I find Vonnegut's comment about the inspiration behind Billy the most intriguing part, however - instead of answering questions, it makes a million more come up about Vonnegut as a author's relationship to Billy the narrator.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the Trafeldorian is the mediator for his way to analyze his circumstances. It's a way for him to reflect his thoughts and ideals. It's someone for him to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Feels like a therapist --- Maybe a bit of a weird therapist.
ReplyDeleteThat interview with Vonnegut provides a lot of clarity now. I think that Tralfamadore is a interesting coping mechanism to deal with all of the death that Billy has seen. This adds even more weight to the PTSD argument. I think that we can see similarities between the person that Billy is based off of, and Billy when he is in the hospital after the crash, where he is talking as he is traveling back to his experiences.
ReplyDeleteI think that billy's potential mental illness is suggested to be related to PTSD. Billy often loses the ability to focus. He sometimes stops noticing his surroundings like when his heater breaks and he doesn't notice. He tries to refuse help from his daughter who thinks that he is going insane. I think that Billy's PTSD shows how no one escapes unharmed from war. Even though Billy wasn't executed or crippled from war, he still acquired a partially debilitating mental disease.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s interesting to look at the relationship between time travel and PTSD, and it brings up the question: is any of this “real”? For all we know, Billy could just be having flashbacks related to his PTSD, and the Tralfamadorians could just have been something that he read in a Kilgore Trout novel. What if he’s just imagining that Tralfamadore is real as a way of coping with his experiences.
ReplyDeleteI would say that his time travel is used as a coping method for his PTSD. By stopping caring about death and using the "so it goes" mentality, he doesn't really get scarred by death. He creates this safe space on Tralfamadore where, everything is kinda ideal, he is sheltered and nothing can hurt him. That is his coping method, at least that is what I think. I guess an alternative hypothesis would be that he was just mentally impacted by the war so much that he has actually gone crazy? Though to be honest, that is not much different from my proposed hypothesis anyway...
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