Vonnegut’s stylistic choice of an achronological order in Slaughterhouse Five demonstrates the effects of war. Billy uses his time traveling power as a way to cope with his PTSD from the war and as a self defense mechanism whenever he is reminded of his experiences from the war; however, whenever Billy travels, whether it be back in the past or forward into the future, he is always doomed to travel again because every timeline of his life is full of stress. There are many examples of this occurrence throughout the course of the text: when Billy sees the barbershop quartet, when Billy hears a siren and thinks it’s the start of World War III;  Billy’s past experiences are so stressful that he has severe PTSD in his post-war life; this means that when Billy is in the war, he is always in a constant state of horror and shock, while in his post-war life, he is always reminded of his experiences in the war, sending him to travel back in the war. This eventually becomes a cycle of Billy time traveling, and he cannot stop it in any way because Billy himself cannot become contemptuous with the traumatizing things he saw in the war, despite Billy’s attempts to adopt the mindset to move on from the experiences of the war. For example, Billy adopts the Tralfmadorians’ ideology about pre-determinism, and how that serious concepts, such as death, are irrelevant since the deceased just travel to another period of their lives; hence, why Billy states “So it goes” after every death. Yet, Billy cannot adopt the Tralfmadorian concept of “ignoring the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones”(121), as he cannot imagine that the results of the war were worth the deaths of millions of people and the immolation of 25,000 women and children. While the Tralfmadorians conclude that ignoring the negative aspects of the world is a more painless method to living life, Billy still cannot derive his attention from the pain and suffering experienced in his time in Dresden. Moreover, Vonnegut utilizes the novel’s achronological order to demonstrate Billy’s disillusionment with society. After the events of the Dresden firebombing, Billy is seen docile, unassertive, and without a purpose throughout his post-war life: rather than take action to further his goals or career, Billy instead lets the flow of life guide him towards his destination, and doesn’t not show any effort to intervene with his family or his work. The whole incident of the event shattered his mental being; in his interaction with the Tralfmadorians, Billy asks if world peace is achievable even in a world where he has “seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pure evil at the time” (121). The effects of the dresden firebombing, and particularly the imagery of thousands of burned bodies in the ground, can be attributed to Billy’s lack of motivation and overall disillusionment in his post war life, as almost all of his flashbacks relate back to Dresden and Billy constantly references the horrors that he witnessed. Vonnegut’s use of events in Billy’s life through an achronological order highlights the transition of Billy’s unsustainable post-war life and disillusionment with society through the firebombing of Dresden; despite Billy’s attempts to move on from World War II (such as his attempt to adopt the philosophy of the Tralfmadorians), he ultimately is always drawn back to his experiences in Dresden and lives an apathetic post-war life. 

Vonnegut implements image-rich symbols, through a non-linear development of the text, to demonstrate how the calamity of war reveals the fallacy of free will. Billy’s experience in the Dresden firebombing lead to the creation of a fictional tralfamadorian society/planet where Billy’s transition from human ideals to his pre-determinism mindset is documented. The Tralfmadorians truly represent the mundane, disillusioned side of Billy and Vonnegut himself, derived from Billy/Vonnegut witnessing immolation 25,000 civilians and arson of the city and is defense mechanism that Billy ultimately made up; while the Billy on Tralfamadore represents the human side that’s left of Billy. The tralfamadorians see in the fourth dimension, just as Billy sees his whole life achronologically and as a spectator jumping from event to event, and come to the conclusion that free will is fallacy: this concept is derived from Billy’s/Vonnegut’s witness of war and the image rich symbols of suffering that come with wide scale conflict. Conversely, ‘human’ Billy on Tralfamadore still conveys humanoid concepts and stoic beliefs, derived from the intrinsic human core that is determined and contains human will. When the two aspects of Billy’s mental state exchange ideals, ‘human’ Billy asks the Tralfmadorians how to keep the planet alive at peace to “take it back to Earth and save us all ”(120); in response, the Tralfmadorians cringe at the request and state that no matter how much they interfere with the timeline of Earth, nothing in Earth’s events would ultimately change and that events of the future are already set in stone. However, in actuality, Billy is trying to convince himself that everything is pre determined in order to rid himself of survivors guilt and the thought that he could have done something to prevent the bombing of Dresden. Furthermore, Billy’s interaction with the Tralfmadorians highlights the will one sacrifice his notion of free will in order to stay sane: something that all humans, at every cognitive level, must do in order to survive and thrive. Billy is rather a dramatized version of Vonnegut throughout the later stages of the novel, which is especially highlighted in Billy’s exchange with the Tralfmadorian narrator: Vonnegut himself coincides with Billy in the novel during these interactions, for Vonnegut knows himself that the only way that he move on from his experiences in Dresden and become a functioning member of society is to believe the philosophy of fatalism, in which Vonnegut utilizes literary devices themselves as psychological devices that would help himself out of his PTSD from Dresden. In other words, just as Billy chooses to move on from the war by adopting the principles of fatalism, Vonnegut utilizes literary techniques (like imagery, symbolism, and achronology) as paths to allow his mental phenomena to accept the events of Dresden.

Kurt Vonnegut’s slaughterhouse five reveals the falsehood of free will through the calamity of war utilizing image-rich symbols and achronology. The novel’s protagonist, Billy, struggles with his PTSD from the Dresden firebombing: virtually unable to function properly in a post-war lifestyle, and is unable to comprehend the immolation of 25,000 women and children. Billy eventually finds a resolution to his woes through pre-determinism, demonstrated through his encounters with the Tralfmadorians just as Vonnegut himself finds peace in utilizing literary devices as supernatural phenomena to his own experiences in World War II. Vonnegut’s/Billy’s transition to resolutions with their inner conflicts truly embodies mankind’s will to sacrifice one’s ideals and notions in order to achieve mental salvation and inner peace.