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PTSD In Slaughterhouse-Five

629 Words3 Pages
Was Billy insane or sane?
After war, many soldiers experiences what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. This disorder affects soldiers’ everyday by causing them to have or receive overwhelming emotions, having trouble sleeping, triggered flashbacks, etc.(Post-Traumatic) In the book, Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy has suffered PTSD and decided to write a book over his experience when he was at the war in Dresden. This shows that Billy was completely sane because the time travels, the coping method, and the events he had experienced.
In the beginning of the story, Billy seemed like he was doing okay. He was going to write a book about what happened when he was in the war in Dresden, studying to be an anthropologist, meeting with his
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no this isn’t the case. Billy is not actually experiencing reality, but instead what Billy is suffering from is a coping mechanism from the condition known as PTSD. Billy uses these jumps into different times, and places from his past to cope with his traumatic stress that he received from the war that he was drafted into. PTSD is a condition linked to events that have happened in peoples lives that aren't exactly enjoyable memories, but rather the opposite. This case becomes present in people who have gone through traumatic experiences.

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Albeit, Billy's coping mechanism is a negative one, it worked for him. He is disassociated from reality because he truly believes the Tralfamadorian philosophy of "All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist." (27) The bombing of Dresden happened, and since it happened, it has always happened that way and always will happen that way. At least, that's what the Tralfamadorians think.

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The first detail established in Slaughterhouse-Five is that Billy is “unstuck in time” and cannot focus on a particular day or event (Vonnegut 23). Billy’s time traveling is really his thoughts moving back and forth between the present and the past. Because of his overly active mind, Billy must use a vibrating mattress called the “Magic Fingers” to help him fall asleep (62). Instead of sleeping, he often weeps, which is one of the only times in the book he shows emotion (62). Billy’s lack of emotion can be construed as detachment.

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Immediately afterwards, he would go on delirious rants around the country about how fate is sealed and how time can go both forward and back. Naturally, this produced mostly negative reactions with people calling him a lunatic and a madman. This reaction however is identical to that of any groundbreaking idea. When Galileo said that the Earth spins, he was forced to renounce his findings or be executed, when the first modern, democratic country was founded, the entire world was convinced that it would fail, and while Billy may or may not be suffering from a mental condition, his ideas are most certainly groundbreaking. Had Billy kept his mouth shut and not said anything, then he would have kept his profession, his family, and would be able to live at home rather than in a hospital.

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Billy is always pressured to get better but by doing that the nurses and doctors are just making him worse, they see how he reacts to their statements and it makes him begin to implode. We don't get to see how Billy sees the world but we do get to see is the effect he has on people and the effect he has on them, Billy is the child of the story and McMurphy just wants to help him, but Billy takes all comments or action towards him in interesting ways and sometimes they can lead to Billy getting hurt. Near the end of the story Billy is confronted about having sex with one of McMurphy’s “friends” by Mrs. Ratched and Billy concludes that the best way to deal with the situation is to kill

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Throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the narrator, Chief Bromden, has a slight mystery surrounding him, like several of the other characters. That is, what mental illness is Chief in the ward for exactly? The answer might seem like the obvious post traumatic stress disorder, but is it really? While he does have the necessary traumatic experience for PTSD to occur, he doesn’t necessarily show all the symptoms. In fact, he shows just as many symptoms for depersonalization/derealization disorder and schizophrenia as he does PTSD.

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Billy was a twenty three years old. He was a black man who was captured by the KKK in the 1920s. Billy's went through a rough time. (Cohen) He was burnt, choked, beaten and even starved.

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In almost everything he does he is the odd man out. Billy seems like the weird person who just always seems out of place and like he doesn't belong. 1969 was the year that this book was published. PTSD was discovered in 1980, so therefore in the book they couldn't define Billy’s condition. As even in reality they didn't know what it was.

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All of these are just some things that Billy’s suffers symptoms of PTSD. One of the symptoms that Billy Pilgrim that he does show are the Re-experiencing symptoms which according to NIMH include “Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating, Bad dreams, and Frightening thoughts” (National Institute of Mental Health, Symptoms) One of the examples is where Billy is when he is trapped in a cart and he then flashes back to " And then Billy was a middle-aged optometrist again, playing hacker's golf this time - on a blazing summer Sunday morning." (Vonnegut,85)

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Some experiences, like the sudden unexpected death of a loved one, can also cause PTSD” (National Institute of Mental Health, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder”). PTSD, like many other diseases, can arise from a number of conditions, making it hard to pinpoint where it stems from. Vonnegut takes into account that PTSD can come from a number of sources, providing a plethora of possible explanations for Billy’s mental capacity throughout the novel. For instance, early in Billy’s life, Billy, along

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Billy is said to become unstuck in time to different events in his life. He flashes to memories of Dresden, which is the war that he participated in. He also has episodes of his flight crash, he knows how he will die, and how his wife dies. This book is so sporadic, the audience never truly knows when this book is taking place in Billy’s life. Each page could contain three or more different events in Billy’s

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In the film, “Black Snake Moan,” (Brewer, 2007) numerous events transpired over the course of a few weeks creating an enthralling story. The main characters of this film included Rae, Ronnie, and Lazarus who all formed a close family bond under unfortunate circumstances. This film began with Ronnie, Rae’s boyfriend, preparing to go off on duty in the military. At first glance, the viewer gets an insight of how Ronnie and Rae’s overall relationship is like, which is quite explicit and unconventional. Rae has an uncontrollably high libido which causes her to do whatever she must to fulfill her needs and desires.

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Throughout the novel, Billy has specific experiences with horrific warfare

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Furthermore, World War II has not only damaged him physically, but also mentally and has gone straight to his head. For the first time in the novel, Billy Pilgrim remembers a past event rather than time-travelling to it. Time-travel, it seems, would have made the event too immediate, too painful (Harris, Charles

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Because of Dependent Personality Disorder, not only did Billy feel the need to have a relationship with someone but his relationship was ruined because of his fearful

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