Chapter 3: Antihero

           Billy Pilgrim is not portrayed as a hero in Slaughterhouse Five like most main characters in novels. Throughout this chapter Vonnegut portrays Billy as an unfit soldier that has no business carrying firearms let alone fighting in the war. Most of the time the reader expects the main character to be strong physically and mentally, courageous, and willing to save one’s self or others; however, that is not how Billy is portrayed in this chapter at all. For example, the passage, “They threw Billy into shrubbery. When Billy came out of the shrubbery, his face wreathed in goofy good will, they menaced him with their machine pistols, as though they were capturing him then” (Vonnegut 58). I feel as if that is a clear example of an antihero, because to me at least it does not even seem as if Billy of trying to resist the German soldiers at all. I almost felt as if Billy had given up on his life.
            Also, I feel as if a stereotypical hero is one to not shed a tear or show any weakness to his enemies or his fellow men, but instead Billy has random outburst of sobbing throughout this chapter. For instance on page 62 the passage says, “…sleep would not come. Tears came instead. They seeped.” Billy showed signs of weaknesses and his flaws. He seems to lack in courage and grace which are thought of to be hero qualities. In chapter three it seems to me that Billy Pilgrim is an antihero through his actions and decision he has made so far.