lso teaches his own religious moral beliefs through his humbleness. One night a spaceship captures Billy and takes him back to their planet Tralfamadore. While Billy is there, they teach him and the reader that war and death are inevitable and should be accepted. They serve as a surrogate God proclaiming that fate is real, and it cannot be changed. Billy learns from them that when a person dies, they only look as though they are dead, but they are still very much alive in the past. The Tralfamadorians also teach that we should not be proud, a sin associated with the Christian belief. They tell Billy that Earth is just a minute part of the large universe and we should not take ourselves too seriously. He reminds the readers not to think too highly of ourselves as he does through continually humbling his work. Vonnegut teaches that war is stupid and we should just accept that it happens and go on with our lives. His personal views on war issues come out through the Tralfamadorians. The subtitle of the book, The Childrens Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death, accuses soldiers of war being innocent children that have an obligation, or duty, to go to war, the dance of death. He mentions that the soldiers in Dresden were baby-faced and he rarely ever had to shave. Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim to mask himself in order to get his messages across without turning readers away with unentertaining lectures. He attempts to get his readers to accept the fact that death is inevitable and we must not fear the end, for this is the life lesson that he has come to realize for himself. Vonnegut invites readers to open their minds and to view new ways to perceive our own lives through his wit and humor; however, he does not force his own beliefs and ideas. One of the various echoes throughout Slaughterhouse-Five is the prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change (Vonnegut 60, 209). Readers are invited to reconcile ...
