In English class, yesterday, we spoke of metaphiction. We said that the character Billy actually might be the writer Kurt Vonnegut, but after reading chapter 5 and chapter 6 thoroughly, I would have to say I disagree. I believe Kurt is a man who went through a similar experience as Billy, but I don't think it is the same man.
I went back to the quote that one of the girls read out in class yesterday to analyse just why the character Billy Pilgrim might represent Kurt Vonnegut, " That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." I had not yet read chapter 5, and I was just skimming through the book and I think just reading that line might influence the reader to think that this was Kurt saying he was Billy Pilgrim. But unfortunately I believe this is false.
The man who says this indeed is the author but it is not Billy, since just above the quote I have mentioned above it says, "An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, "There they go, there they go." He meant his Brains." After this quote the line read out by the girl in class is mentioned. This is why I believe Billy and Kurt are separate men.
If you still believe they are both the same person, there is another area in Chapter six which I believe justifies what I believe. Unless the author is acting as a sub conscious to Billy they must be seperate people. In this chapter there is a line similar to what the girl read in class,"That was I. That was me. The only other city I'd ever seen was Indianapolis, Indiana." Here is where the two different characters of this book enter Dresden. Why do I believe they are completely different people? Because of their different opinions of how Dresden looks like: Billy believes it looks like a "Sunday school picture of Heaven", and the author believes the city looks like "Oz."
The author has done similar things in other chapters where he allows himself to enter into the story. Therefore he allows the story to invent itself, mixing reality and imagination, allowing himself to be part of the story. So I disagree with what was said about them being the same person. Separate minds, seperate sould, placed together at the same place at the same time.
DC Blog: My Review on "ON Behaving Children" blog
I found it interesting and quite true what DC said on his blog. When I was living in switzerland, and sometimes even now, I would talk to little kids. Mainly the little kids on my bus, and I would usually find my self correcting them, or laughing at the cutest things they would say. DC has a way in explaining his blog in words we are able to understand, trys to make us relate and gives examples.
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