Free Will and Fate in Slaughterhouse Five

In Slaughterhouse Five, the theme of free will, or rather lack thereof, is commonly brought up. Vonnegut jumps upon this idea very quickly as he speaks of the inevitability of death in Chapter 1.

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.