Friday, January 1, 2016
Bugs in Amber
We have previously brought up the topic of "bugs in amber", so I would like to add to that. When Billy is once again captured by the tralfamadorians he simply asks them, "why me?". The tralfamadorian then responds by saying, "Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" (Vennegut, pg.76-77) Then Billy says, "'yes', because he has a paperweight at his office which is a blob of polished amber with three lady bugs embedded in it." (Vonnegut, pg.77) This really caught my attention because all of this time I thought of the term bugs in amber to have a much deeper meaning, to symbolize a much greater theme or lesson that we don't yet understand. But instead the tralfamadorians are just simply comparing a bug stuck in amber to Billy stuck in time. I did not expect it to relate directly to an object like a paperweight. Do you think that there still is a deeper meaning that hasn't been revealed yet?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I thought about the same thing while I was reading, Megan. Your explanation of this is much greater than I could have done. However, I still believe that the bugs in amber could have a deeper meaning than just Billy being stuck in time. This is because Billy is just one of the bugs in the amber, but the question he asked was "why me?" Why is he one of those bugs in the amber? So did the Tralfamadorians really answer his question?
ReplyDelete