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20th-Century American Literature Videos 31 videos
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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.
Slaughterhouse Five 20393 Views
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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.
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
Full Transcript
- 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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