Billy Pilgrim's Journey

In the Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, we are introduced to the main character, Billy Pilgrim. He is an average guy, who has no special qualities, however, does have the ability to travel through time. My interpretation of the reading and Billy’s time travel is that he suffers from a traumatic mental illness, which could have led, him to hallucinate his time travels and alien abduction. There are two connections I found that could have encouraged Billy’s behavior, becoming a prisoner of war during his service in WWII and his aircraft incident many years later. When Billy was a prisoner of war he became aware of his ability to time travel, there he was able to see his life from beginning to end. This time period could have lead Billy
to express traumatic hallucinations—seemingly a real perspective of his life, but can also be caused by a mental illness. Secondly, Billy suffered a brain injury after his aircraft incident; he then became comfortable to verbalize his experiences with aliens. These two traumatic incidents could have confused Billy and he was unaware of what was real and what was his interpretation of incidents throughout his life. Furthermore, I noticed an interesting motif “blue and ivory” when Billy describes feet. “He was barefoot, and still in his pajamas and a bathrobe, though it was late afternoon. His bare feet were blue and ivory” (35). This is the first sight of the motif; we see it throughout the reading, “out went his blue and ivory feet crushing the wet salad of lawn” (95). I interpreted this as an indication of death. Billy describes his blue and ivory feet when he is unable to feel emotion, or becomes abducted by aliens. Another connection towards death is when Billy feels and hears, “a violet light and a hum” (55). He has involvements with this feeling during his first time travel during his imprisonment and his aircraft incident, both contributions to sensations of death. Question: Is Billy’s story all hallucinations or actual?