Billy uses science-fiction to escape and form a new universe. All of the weird fictional things in Slaughterhouse-5, Billy has picked up from science-fiction books. For example, the stuff about the fourth-dimension, the Tralfamadorian-like aliens, and the aliens that captured humans as zoo creatures.
I don’t think that having this sci-fi stuff next to the seriousness of the bombings detracts from the bombing’s importance. I read it as Billy, being unable to cope with the idea of war and the deaths, creates his own world with his own view on time to escape this reality. The Tralfamadorian way of looking at death is relatively positive. The death is insignificant because the person will live on forever in the past. This does come with the consequence of losing free will, but that also benefits Billy’s psyche; there’s nothing he can change about the war.
There is a proverb in the book that appears in both Billy’s office, and on a locket owned by Montana Wildhack that goes, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Billy does not accept the truth of the war and casts himself into a reality where he has no free will, and no power to change anything, leading to his “serenity.” This also relates to Billy’s epitaph about the his feelings towards war, “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” In the Tralfamadorian view of time and life, everything is beautiful, but through Billy’s traveling in time, we see that the things he experienced were far from beautiful by normal standards.
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