Billy Pilgrim Chapter 2 Summary

Kurt Vonnegut begins the book with writing about his own experience with the war in Dresden. He goes on to tell about how he wanted to write about his experience for a while and how it took him twenty-three years to actually accomplish it. Vonnegut soon writes about another story in Chapter two and this is the story the rest of the book follows. The reader soon finds out about the character Billy Pilgrim and everything about his life. “He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between” (Vonnegut, 26). Vonnegut uses time-shifting throughout the novel to try and make the reader understand Billy Pilgrims traumatic experiences throughout his life. These different experiences made Billy Pilgrims

He tells the reader almost his entire life. He begins to tell how Billy Pilgrim was born in Ilium, New York in 1922. Also, tells the reader how he graduated from high school and went to Optometry school for only one semester, then after a semester he was drafted. Once Billy Pilgrim was drafted his father had an accident while hunting which caused his death. While he was at war he was captured by the Germans, but after the war he began back going to school at the school of optometry. He got engaged his senior year. Had a “nervous collapse” and had to go to the hospital for veterans. Vonnegut continues to tell the reader how Billy became very rich and had two children. Which both followed in their father’s footsteps. His daughter became on optometrist and his son fought in the Vietnam war. In early 1968 Billy was in a plane crash and while he was in the hospital recovering his wife died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy Pilgrim experienced a lot of life changing events and it will just continue throughout the

The time shifting makes him tired. Time shifting also always makes him wonder what is going to happen next. On the other hand, he sometimes knows what is about to happen so it keeps him waiting for it. Billy was captured by the Tralfamadorians on the same day as his daughter, Barbara’s, wedding. Billy describes the Tralfamadorians and said they looked like two-foot-high aliens that resembled upside down toilet plungers. Billy also described his time with the Tralfamadorians and how he was taken to a zoo and made to mate with a movie actress. Throughout the book Vonnegut continues to tell Billy’s experience in short paragraphs that jump from one-time frame to