In Billy’s case this would be his encounter with the Tralfamadorians, relating to real life events that are being rearranged by his imagination. They see everything including the universe in a different way from humans. Billy reads a book by Kilgore Trout in New York City that answers the question to his strong view of being abducted. “He got a few paragraphs into it, and then he realized that he had read it before-years ago in the veterans’ hospital. It was about an earthling man and woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zircon-212.”(201) This section in the book shows the contrast between his imagination and reality. While Billy believes that he was actually captured by aliens, it can be seen that his imagination comes into play when he feels that he is reliving this book he has read. He alters his life to how his perfect reality would be, attempting to remove the traumatic points in his life by filling them with these new ideas.
In our society, countries go to war as a solution to their problems escaping the real world. Wars take away childhoods as expressed in the book that they are sending babies to such a traumatic event, causing them to grow.“ ‘You were just babies in the war-like the ones upstairs!’ I nodded that this was true. We had been foolish virgins in the war,right at the end of childhood” (14) Wars throughout history have impacted the way we live in more ways than one, there can be a positive or negative side. http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/pages/ww2/ -The website shows an insight ( in pictures) of how WW2 effected many peoples lives in either a positive and/or negative way. Some believe that wars are good, it solves problems and creates peace. People love the thrill of fighting for their rights and getting their voice heard. “He was going to tell the world about the lessons of Tralfamadore” (199)
“All time is all time. it does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is” (86) This connects to the idea of how events in time cannot be predicted and that everything happens in life for a reason. The notion of Billy’s time travel depicts how his life in the present connects to the points he makes by going back in time, how his past affected the present. “They’re playing with the clocks again”(208) While on the planet of Tralfamadore, the aliens play around with the time that Billy and Montana experience in the dome. The aliens see time as a figure of imagination. While we on Earth see time as being very valuable and short, the aliens take it for granted as it does not impact their lifestyle as much.
“Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore.”(198) Billy and others in war learn to cope with their traumatic events, they are sent to war for a reason, they realize that. The side effects of war, however, are still there, they will always be. They find ways to escape reality, to make everything "alright." Billy time travels to a new world, where his life doesn't face hard times. It's easier to experience something looking at it in a different perspective. “Well here we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment.” (77)