But the prospect that Billy is mentally ill should not
compel us to dismiss the events and stories in the novel as the
ramblings of a madman. Insanity extends beyond Billy himself, infiltrating
the world in which he lives. For instance, Vonnegut appears intermittently
as a character, not only in Billy’s war experiences but also on
the night of Billy’s abduction by aliens. Billy’s hallucination
of the image of Adam and Eve in the boots of his commander does
not spring wholly from his brain; earlier, the commander himself
invokes Adam and Eve as he holds up his boots to demonstrate their
high polish. It becomes clear, then, that characters’ psychologies
and mental states overlap in a realm of dementia. It is impossible
to ridicule Billy’s thoughts or words as insane ramblings, since
his world contains such illogical and unexplainable events. Furthermore,
the anonymous narrator, who at times sounds like Vonnegut himself, may
be a participant in this frenzy of insanity, blurring the boundaries
between reality and fantasy.
