Billy's Fears

       I am actually starting to enjoy the randomness of Slaughter House Five because it allows for Vonnegut to plug some random philosophical thoughts and ideas into his writing.  One of my personal favorites from Chapter 8 was, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.  One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters" (208-209).  I think in this quote we see what Billy is trying not to become although he does have his moments being the "listless playthings of enormous forces" such as the Tralfamadorians.  He wants to be a character, he wants to be in this book, and he wants to have a story to tell so badly that he finds himself jumping from place to place in time to find something interesting enough to make himself a character. Although Billy has made it quite obvious he doesn't fear death because he has seen it happen many times, I think he fears being forgotten or not having an interesting enough story to tell.