Slaughterhouse-Five Chapter 2 Post 2 of 2

     Chapter two establishes that Billy Pilgrim "has come unstuck in time...He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941." Pilgrim jumps around in the time stream without any control (or at least at the present moment in the novel he has no control). This idea of time travel captivates almost all readers of Vonnegut's novel. With the positives and negatives of this "power", one must think what is actually traveling the expanse of time: is it Pilgrim's body, soul, or just mind? Or on a more focused note, what is time travel?
   To the common definition, time travel is one entity leaving the time stream and re-entering at a different point; however, one can travel through time with just the power of mind. In a memory of a past event, in one's mind, they are truly there in that moment. What makes it different than the actual event? In a memory, everything pans out exactly as it occurred; moreover, the memory eliminates any free will. In Slaughterhouse- Five, it does not seem as though Billy Pilgrim changes anything when he is thrust to a different point in time. He simple lives in that moment again. This time travel event could be just a mental lapse or terrible daydream that make Pilgrim feel as though he traveled through time.