Chapter 3: Cannot Change

           One thing throughout this chapter that made me stop and think for a long time was the idea of “so it goes” after every death. At first, this just irritated me. I thought that Billy was trying to conceal his pain and pretend he was not at all bothered by the deaths he witnessed. He seemed apathetic to everything, including his childhood home now being an empty space. However, I soon began to suspect there was a bigger reason behind this. It is soon explained in the novel that Billy Pilgrim has a prayer on his office wall which says, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference" (Vonnegut 60). I took this as an explanation for his apathy and saw it as something good. Billy Pilgrim was not trying to pretend he did not care; he was simply forcing himself not to care because there was nothing he could do about it. If there is nothing to do, one should just accept it and move on, instead of hovering on the situation and never letting go. On the other hand, if there is something one could do about it, one should have the strength to act and solve it. I found it inspirational and began to actually admire Billy Pilgrim. However, what followed in the story made me take back my admiration which goes also with the idea of him being an antihero. Billy believes there is nothing one can do about the past, the present or the future. He sees time as something circular, and believes that everything is happening at the same time, he thinks there is no way to make a change. Therefore, his life is meaningless and routine-like, with (in his opinion) no decisions being made and everything being planned out until the very end.

         I feel as if we have always been told that we have the power to make life the way we want it to be. This is actually motivational, allowing people to make the best of their lives and changing their minds about things many times. However, with this theory, Billy will not even try to change things because, I know this is going to sound weird but it is already the “future's past”, so it shouldn't be changed. Since everything is happening at the same time, there is no such thing as past, present, and future. This allows Billy to believe that there is nothing to do about neither of these, and everything should stay the way he already saw it in the future.