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Description:

We wish the Tralfamadorians were as fun as they sound. But unfortunately, they're your garden variety kidnap-humans-and-torture-them type of alien.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Slaughterhouse-Five, a la Shmoop. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is a

00:08

realistic depiction of what happens during and after war.

00:12

It has violence, trauma, alcoholism, and… alien abductions.

00:16

Wait, alien abductions? We don’t usually hear about those on Veteran’s Day.

00:21

But Billy Pilgrim is snatched away by the Tralfamdorians <<no official pronunciation

00:24

– just sound out>> to live and mate in their interstellar zoo. You won’t find that in

00:29

any history textbook.

00:31

What is going on with Billy's trips to Tralfamadore? Take a look at when this book is set.

00:37

It’s the 1960s. Everything is trippy and psychedelic, and chances are if you weren’t

00:43

listening to Yellow Submarine, you were thinking you lived in one.

00:46

It’s a tie-dye state of mind, you dig? Billy’s groovy visions are just a result

00:53

of the times. He doesn’t exactly have a firm grasp on reality.

00:58

However, despite Billy’s tenuous grasp on the real world, these spacey trips are very

01:04

real to Billy…

01:05

… and the Tralfamadorians teach him some valuable lessons…

01:09

Like how time is totally predetermined and unchangeable and there is no free will.

01:14

Yikes. That would have us crying ourselves to sleep in our cage… if being in a cage

01:18

didn’t have us crying already.

01:20

Maybe by valuable lesson we mean: bleak and depressing lesson.

01:24

Either way, who cares if it’s all in his head? As long as it’s him and not us.

01:31

Real or not, maybe it's all just one big metaphor.

01:34

The Tralfamadorians are a lot like the Germans during World War two, except without the funny

01:39

little Charlie Chaplin mustache that Hitler ruined for everyone.

01:42

These aliens strip Billy of his choices… and his clothes…

01:45

…Take him captive, and make him subject to their rules and their reality.

01:49

He’s trapped like an animal in a zoo. They make him relive his World War two experience,

01:54

and there's nothing he can do to stop it. It’s the sci-fi version of post-traumatic

01:59

stress disorder.

02:00

If Billy was an actual monkey, instead of a human experiment, PETA would not be happy

02:05

about this. Back to reality, everyone. Buckle your seatbelts.

02:09

What do you think about Billy's trips to Tralfamadore?

02:13

Are they trippy hallucinations?

02:15

Are they part of Billy’s weird, sci-fi fantasy?

02:18

Or are they just a far-out metaphor? Shmoop amongst yourselves

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