The Effects Of Extreme Stress On Billy Pilgrim s...

How would one feel if he woke up one morning and couldn’t decipher what was real and what was his imagination? He would feel confused. But how would people react if he confused his imagination with reality? They would suspect that he is going crazy. This is actually quite similar to the character Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse- Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy was a prisoner of war and witnessed the bombing of Dresden. After what he had witnessed, Billy shows signs of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder throughout the novel. He had trouble sleeping, he had nightmares, and he was constantly looking back at time and reliving the trauma he faced. According to the article Who Develops Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, â€Å"the effects of extreme stress has a long history, primarily focused on the effects of war† (Ozer and Weiss 1). One can assume that Billy developed PTSD after the war because of the way he acted. After seeing so many deaths from the war, Billy no longer has emotions towards death and sadness. By witnessing these horrible deaths and the bombing of Dresden, nothing seems horrific to Billy anymore. He shows no emotion when someone dies. He then confuses his life with science fiction novels and people begin to think he’s going crazy. After the war, his life was never the same. Ultimately, Billy Pilgrim is unable to live a normal life due to his traumatic memories from the war. Through several examples within the novel, Billy Pilgrim constantly relives his war memories. While heShow MoreRelatedSlaughterhouse Five Are Obvious And Piercing As One1139 Words   |  5 PagesSo It Goes Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, illustrates the ghastly experiences within World War II and the journey through the universe and time of the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Although war is a sensitive subject in most cases, Vonnegut’s sarcastic, dark humor on the matter helps bring light to the fact that war is horrendous. Slaughterhouse Five demonstrates the reality of war throughout its major themes, historical accuracy, and Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences withinRead MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper, By Charlotte Perkins Gilman2534 Words   |  11 Pagescertain that Gilman’s own experiences of mental health problems and subsequent inadequate attempts at treatment provided the mainstay of her inspiration for the novel. In her autobiography Gilman stated that the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell [her doctor], and convince him of the error of his ways’. Gilman’s use of such a forwardly unreliable n arrator was not ground-breaking, the technique has been utilised by authors from Chaucer to Sterne. Yet Gilman’s choice utilisation