Just a memory??

Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy has uncontrollable time shifts. He is one place at one point, and one place in another, and before chapter eight, Billy never just remembers. He always is, or thinks he is, there experiencing past occurrences. In chapter eight though, it is different. He has his first actual memory. Vonnegut makes a clear distinction between Billy being there and having an actual memory by saying, “Billy thought hard about the effect the quartet had had on him, and then found an association with an experience he had long ago. He did not travel in time to the experience. He remembered it shimmeringly-as follows:” (226) Vonnegut then writes about how Billy experienced the bombing that destroyed Dresden. Billy remembers waiting on this bombing in a meat locker with other American prisoners and four guards, and then emerging to find Dresden basically gone, with nothing truly remaining but death. He then remembers the four guards grouped together in a huddle with expressions on their faces swapping between awe and terror. This allows Billy to make an association with the guards and the barbershop quartet, and allows Billy to make a distinction between the "real world", and his time lapses. I think the Febs (also known as the barbershop quartet) make him think back to this event that happened to him, and bring him back to reality. The guards he saw and remember, look very similar to the Febs, which allows him to realize that he is not actually in Dresden experiencing the bombing, but he is just remembering an event in the past.I believe Billy remembers the events like he does so that he can link the loss of the thousands of people in Dresden with his experience in the meat locker with the four guards and other Americans so that he can put this terrible tragedy behind him and stop experiencing it. I think it does exactly that, because later on in the novel, According to Vonnegut, Montana Wildhack says, “Tell me a story,” (228) and Billy starts his story with “Dresden was destroyed on the night of February 13, 1945.” (228) This occurrence shows that he has finally put this event behind him, and that is why he is able to talk about it without actually physically thinking he is there.