In his conversation with Harrison
Starr, it is said:
“Is it an
anti-war book?”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess.”
“You know what I say to people when
I hear they’re writing anti-war books?”
“No. What do you say,
Harrison Starr?”
“I say, ‘Why don’t you write an
anti-glacier book instead?’ ” (4)
In the conversation, Harrison Starr
compares war to a glacier, a huge body of dense ice, constantly
inching forward under it’s own weight. He suggests that war is
inevitable and unstoppable and that despite the supposed notion of
free will, there is nothing anyone can do in preventing wars from
taking place. Vonnegut goes on to say, “And even if wars didn’t
keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death,”(4)
building upon his point that war, or rather the most important
consequence of war, death, is ever present.
Later in the novel, Vonnegut further
explores the concept of fate through Billy’s experiences with the
Tralfamadorians. These little green men see time a little differently
than we humans. While we think of time as linear, the Tralfamadorians
ability to see the fourth dimension allows them to view different
moments of an object at the same time. Billy explains that, “When
a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person
is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person
is just fine in plenty of other moments." (34). This description
suggests time is not linear but rather it is cyclic; every moment has
happened, is happening, and will happen. Billy affirms this by
saying, “All moments, past, present, and future, always have
existed, always will exist.” (34). The idea that the future has
already happened suggest the notion of fate, and the inability to
change our destiny. In support of this, Vonnegut states, “Among the
things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and
the future.” (77). Furthermore, the Tralfamadorians also say:
“If
I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings, I wouldn’t have
any idea what was meant by ‘free will.’ I’ve visited thirty-one
inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one
hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (109)
Now
the question is, is time is really as the Tralfamadorians describe
it? In reality there is no way to tell. One might argue that as a
human, we have the conscientious mind to decide what we will do at a
given moment; we can even change what we do whenever we choose to.
However, it can be argued that a mere human's feeble attempt at
playing fate may have been predestined in the first place. Can’t it
be possible that you were destined at that moment to attempt to play
fate, by “consciously” changing your mind. Exactly, there’s no
way for us to tell whether or not we truly have free will and it’s
a little bit scary thinking of it. There’s literally
nothing you can do to change your life, what was, is, and always
will be.
