Billy Pilgrim

    Billy Pilgrim plays the role of protagonist in Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-five. He is described as being born in New York, and introduced as a senile widower. However, he often time travels randomly, so he is constantly living different parts of his life. When he is old, he is known for telling people that he was kidnapped by aliens named Tralfamadorians, and how they can see every moment of their lives whenever they want to. He makes his first impressions as an old man telling crazy stories. The next part of the book shows Billy in his twenties, drafted in World War II as a "chaplain's assistant". He is lost behind German lines, without a helmet or any weapons, and tags along with three other soldiers who try to keep him alive. He then passes out in a forest, experiences his whole life from birth to death in a flash, and wakes up in different parts of his life, like his experience at a little league baseball banquet and New Year's Eve 1961 where Billy was "disgracefully drunk at a party" (p.46). This is described as "when [he] first came unstuck in time" (p.43). Overall, Billy Pilgrim paints a picture of an extremely unlucky man, who was almost drowned by his father at a young age "by the method of sink-or-swim", and showing apathy to life for the most part (p.43). He is even out of place in the army; the book describes him not "[looking] like a soldier at all- he looked like a filthy flamingo" (p.33). I predict that Billy will continue waking up in random parts of his life, as he seems to barely have any control over what happens to him.