Chapter 2

Vonnegut uses indirect characterization regarding Billy when he says “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next” (29). All in chapter two, we learn basically Billy’s whole background, and what he has been through. Billy studied to be an optometrist, was drafted and entered the war in Germany, has two children, was involved in a plane crash where his wife died, and becomes sane. The uncontrolled telling of events in Billy’s life in this chapter resemble characteristics in himself.