The Dissolution of Time

My partner and I did a painting based on the themes of time and free will in Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. Some major ideas that we wanted to capture were that time itself is an illusion, which was the purpose of the numbers in the warp, and the significance of the bombing in Dresden and the capturing of Billy Pilgrim by the Tralfamadorians, which are two major events in his life.The scattered numbers where essentially looked at as a broken clock, but if we are considering that another main theme was the illusion of free will, the numbers could be a metaphor for everything that we as humans go through in life. Because if you think about it, everything that happens in our life is essentially decided by numbers; from grades, to years, to how much money is in our bank accounts. The dissolution of the clock in this poster shows the reality, at least the Tralfamadorian reality, that there is no free will because there is no time, at least not time as we're used to it.

In an article titled "Neuroscience in Fiction" by Susana Martinez-Conde, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/illusion-chasers/slaughterhouse-5/, it is noted that "Tralfamadorians don't percieve time as an arrow, but as an all-encompasing experience of simultaneous past, present, and future." That statement in itself incorporates the entire vision for the scattered numbers, or "broken clock," that time is simply an illusion. According to the article humans "perceive time linearly" which is why we "feel that we make most of our decisions freely," and because time is an illusion so is free will, which is one of the major things that Billy Pilgrim comes to discover as he becomes "unstuck in time." The illusions of time and free will are what can cause unnecessary sensations of hopelessness, because humans feel that have lost control when they should be in control, when in reality there is nothing to control. Since every is happening and has already happened all at the same time there is no reason to assume control over anything, and there is also no reason to feel sad over things that happen. Which is why every time someone dies in the book Billy and the Tralfamadorians use the phrase "So it goes." Using the phrase "So it goes" after every death is an acknowledgement of time not being a factor, because according to the Tralfamadorians a person is only dead in one moment and alive in so many other, linear time wouldn't work in this way of thinking. We incorporated this phrase into the poster by making it stand out in the orange paint, because it is an important factor in the book, but it is also not more important than anything else which is why it is not in the middle or especially large. This exemplifies the equalization that is in very essence of the phrase and the book as a whole.

The two main images in black on the poster are representative of the two major places that Billy Pilgrim would always travel to, the bombing in Dresden and the planet of Tralfamadore. These two events seem to be the most significant because Dresden is place that initially triggered the trauma that caused the flashbacks and "trips". And the experience with the Tralfamadorians, I feel, is what helped him cope with the feelings of hopelessness that came after the bombing, because the lessons he learned will the Tralfamadorians taught him that since time and free will do not exist, there is no reason to despair, no reason to ask "Why me?" Because according to the Tralfamadorians, there is no why.

Too Grunge for this Scene?

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison, starts off generally a lot like your typical "revengeful ghost" story. With the ghost being of a murdered person of importance, usually in a cruel or unusual way and/or being a child. The ghostly presence that appears in "Beloved" happens to have both of those dangerous characteristics, being the ghost of a baby killed by her mother. This trope of ghosts and the supernatural continues throughout and is even thoroughly enhanced have a believed human manifestation of the dead child arises in the form of "Beloved."

As I was thinking of movies that could compare to this sort of vengeful ghost trope, the first to pop into my head was "The Grudge." Though the story line is much different, a mentally ill man who kills his wife and child out of jealousy, the appearance of the ghost(s) (the dead wife and child) happen in almost the same ways. They, all the ghosts aforementioned, are all angry about not only being murdered, but being murdered by the people they love.

Roger Ebert described 'The Grudge" as a movie that "rigidly followed the old-age formula of horror movies" on his website http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-grudge-2004, which is probably the exact reason that this movie is a good tool of comparison to "Beloved." Not at all saying that "Beloved" has a typical story line, because that is very far from the truth. This movie is good comparison tool because of both it's similarities and differences with the book, and there are plenty of each. Along with all the similarities I've listed about another is the manifestation and the ghosts. It is very clear that in "Beloved" the book's namesake is believed to be the dead baby's manifestation, and in "the grudge" something similar happens where the dead boy is believed to have been seen. 

The major differences between the two, though, are basically how the ghosts are resolved or put to rest. In "Beloved," for example, there is finality, a peaceful ending to the story of Beloved and the hold she had on the main character's lives. But in "the Grudge" the hauntings continued, it had to, so that the film industry could milk all the money it could off of this story.         

Secondary Source link : http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-grudge-2004