detached, objective manner. In the final chapter of the novel, Vonnegut speculates on whether or not he can accept such a view of life. Vonnegut comments, "If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, [that events in time exist simultaneously and forever], I am not overjoyed. Still- if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice" (211). Vonnegut is being totally sarcastic as he has just completed writing about one of the worst events in his life-the bombing of Dresden. If we live forever, so too will the firebombing of Dresden go on forever. Ultimately, Vonnegut does not agree that his and Billy's attempts to forget the terrible moments in their lives are the correct way to face what they have been through. Vonnegut knows that he cannot avoid events in his life simply because they are disagreeable to him; yet he still does not say whether or not people can control life or if, as the Tralfamadorians believe, there is no such thing as free will. Vonnegut debates this concept from the outset of the novel when he tells a friend that he is writing an anti-war book. Vonnegut toys with the notion that war is inevitable, but he leaves the possibility that wars can be stopped; he still knows that death is unavoidable. Vonnegut ultimately rejects the Tralfamadorian theory of life that is so common throughout the novel. He knows that he will never understand man's cruelty, but he does know that it is not inevitable; he knows that it can be stopped. He knows that one day the world will stop sending its babies off to fight and that constant war is not the fate of the universe. A prayer in the novel that is stated both in Billy's Tralfamadorian world, as well as in his real world, goes as follows: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the thi...
