Billy Pilgrims Presentations of Metal Illness in Kurt...

Billy Pilgrim, the main character of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five, would not be described as an ordinary person by any standards. Billy is an optometrist, prisoner of war, World War II veteran, a zoo display for aliens, and a frequent time traveler. The character Billy is a controversial subject, because readers cannot discern whether he is sane and has fantastical experiences or is insane and deserves to be in a mental hospital. Billy Pilgrim may be many things, but is Billy simply a fictional character or a portrayal of Vonnegut’s own insanity. Billy displays the symptoms for various mental illnesses, primarily schizophrenia and post-traumatic-stress-disorder or PTSD. In addition, Vonnegut was a prisoner of war and most likely suffers from PTSD. The most common symptom for schizophrenic patients, but not exclusively, is auditory hallucinations (Gadow, Kenneth D. Schizophrenia Spectrum And Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms In Autism Spectru m Disorder And Controls. Journal Of The American Academy Of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 51.10 (2012): 1076-1084. ERIC. Web. 10 Feb. 2014). Other symptoms are visual hallucinations, paranoia and delusions of grandeur. Patients who suffer from auditory hallucinations display lack of focus and awareness (Valmaggia, Lucia R., Theo K. Bouman, and Laura Schuurman. Attention Training With Auditory Hallucinations: A Case Study. Cognitive And Behavioral Practice 14.2 (2007): 127-133. ERIC. Web. 10 Feb. 2014). In