Snoozing...

"Later on in life, the Tralfamadorians would advise Billy to concentrate on the happy moments of his life, and to ignore the unhappy ones- to stare only at pretty things as eternity failed to go by. If this sort of selectivity had been possible for Billy, he might have chosen as his happiest moment his sun drenched snooze in the back of the wagon." (195 Dell edition-middle of chapter 8)

This passage occurs two days after the end of the war. Billy and the other American prisoners of war found an abandon wagon resembling a coffin, equipped with two old horses and are returning to the slaughterhouse for war souvenirs. Billy falls asleep in the back of the wagon and claims that to be the happiest moment of his life.

This passage stood out to me because it seems to me that someone should have much happier moments in their life than taking a nap in a coffin. For instance, the day he married his wife, the day his children were born, etc. I understand that after being a prisoner of war, one would inevitably be elated when the war was over but the fact that that moment was Billy's happiest speaks volumes about Billy. I believe that Billy has PTSD and has not been able to cope with that happened to him in the war.

It's ironic that the happiest moment of Billy's life is when he's in a coffin-shaped bed among the ruins of Dresden. There's nothing beautiful or pleasant about his surroundings. The coffin seems to resemble the fact that Billy, in a way, died in Dresden. The war changed him and left sort of an empty shell. The coffin could also be representative of the lives lost in the Dresden firebombing.

Why did Billy feel so compelled to tell Rumfoord that he was in Dresden during the firebombing if he didn't also want to tell Rumfoord his story?

-Molly