Slaughter-house Five

Slaughter-house Five presented with an intersting take on the various reactions to trauma, suffering and pain. Billy Pilgrim, the passive anti-hero, seems to completely deflect the horror he experiences in war. As a sort of psycholgical defense mechanism, he acts as a sponge absorbing the world but never really producing anything out. Billy is an odd paradox in that he plasters the hurt he truly does feel, and shoves it back into the recesses of his psyche. He breaks into tears spontaneously at some points, revealing that he really is wounded and bruised and yet does not congictively label it as his psycholgical wounds of war. What he went through in Dresden did not distort his innate humanity because his apathy for life had been instilled in him from the beginning. Perhaps this was his saving grace; his jelly-like personality made it impossible for anything to shape him because he simply flopped back into lethargy, like a sculptor working with a pile of noodles he lived his life in a constant state of meandering, from time, reality and realtionships. Suffering did not necessarily bring out the best or the worst in Billy and that maybe the most tragic aspect for Billy. Suffering has the potential to shape, and mold, refine our nature but if Billy was inept to recieve this blessing in disguise, his character and whole being would do nothing but plateau. The message that Vonnegut presents his readers with diverges so greatly with the usual theme in literature, illustrating the idea that war can be such a destructive force, a black hole, that it cores out the humanity in an individual, making normal life after impossible. The suffering that pre and post war induces is the most bizarre pain to deal with and ultimately overcome. Phsyical pain may amplify the psycholgical consequences and the veteran may have to conquer both simoultanesouly. Sadly though, there are no real winners in war. Indeed, one may come out in less ruin than the other, but the marks it leaves on a country and its people are everlasting, irreperable.

Beloved Suffering

The story of Beloved captures the question of suffering so poignantly, and with so many various resulting destinations on the journey and transformation of suffering, that at times it appears that Toni Morrison has no concrete platform on the issue. Her character, Sethe, as a result of suffering manifests her wounds and pain into Beloved. She packages her suffering and incarnates that suffering into something she could pardon, hug, hold and love. However, that suffering ultimately seeks to threaten Sethe's very existence- and paradoxically Sethe must conquer herself- the memory she cannot let go of, that is the beast. Paul D is another illustration of an individual who dismisses his pain, rejecting his human nature to mourn and chooses rather to glean what was left of his masculinity and embrace callousness. Again, Morrison reveals that such inabilities to pardon our past suffering becomes a bigger monster than the horror that we once faced. The suffering that accompanies slavery appears to distort and destroy the tender nature of humanity, but if one examines the character portrayed by Stamp Paid, one finds that suffering can allow the individual to discover a new identity and refine one's character. For some, it made them stronger, more appreciative of the little joys in life, but for others it spurred a continual defeatist attitude that dictated their future. Baby Suggs had her moment of triumph when she "preached" to her black community and created a name for herself. But it when she was reacquainted with schoolteacher and the past that she fell back into apathy and surrendered to her bed. But perhaps Baby Suggs was not surrendering to defeat but rather, seized her moment to finally rest. It may not be fair to condemn Baby Suggs for retiring to her bed to contemplate colors and the minute details of life. Who is to say whether she was allotted such sweet surrender or throwing in the towel? Never having experienced such trauma, I am not sure I am qualified.

The Stranger

Everyone at some point in their life has felt out of place; the overwhelming feeling of being the odd one out, the misfit, the lone ranger. But unlike the Lone Ranger, most individuals
cannot muster so much bone chilling cool as he, much less put up an even somewhat
believable front. The monster that is isolation and the dread of unnacceptance
drives people to the point of insanity, depression and sometimes, conformity.
For if we didn’t have something that threatened the current of complacency, the
tidal waves of traditional, society would have no reason to not accept us. But
it is because at some point, every individual on this planet will stand for
something, say something, or do something that is contrary to popular belief
and notion. Meursault in The Stranger is indifferent to virtually everything.
He cannot sell out who he is and ironically dies for his right to be nothing at
all. He could not comprehend changing all that he was simply because of what
society required of him, and even when they shunned him, ostracized and imprisoned
him, he could not bow. If Meursault was the type to mourn his shortened life
perhaps one could view the immense measure of suffering that accompanies ostracism,
for it is a basis fundamental of human nature, instinctual from the beginnings
of the species evolution. The consequences of a life time of seclusion are detrimental
on the human psyche, the pack instinct so deeply instilled in man’s nature. It hurts when the ones we love reject us. It can be the quickest route to a self-destructive path of low self-esteem and piercing insecurity. But Meursault was the not the character to wail, weep and beat his chest in anguish. He did not plead for society to take him back into its arms, he did not beg for
salvation.

Though I do not agree with his indifferent lifestyle, I find his reslience to withstanding tradition admirable. At times in the The Stranger, one can catch small glimpses of Meursault's suffering, but paradoxically, his resolve to be everything his truly, basely was, overcame. If at ever we find ourselves on the outskrits, and the nagging desire to rejoin our freshly foreign commarades grows to impossible pain, seek solace in the fact that we are in ourselves a statement. Even if the only one receiving the message is ourselves.