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Past -> Present:
The significance in this specific time jump is because we are just as confused as Billy is in this scene. He goes from being fourty-one in 1965, visiting his mother in a nursing home, to 1958, attending a Little League banquet for his son Robert, to 1961 in the middle of cheating on his wife with another woman. And, he does all of this in a matter of 3 blinks. I think it's safe to say that anyone in that position would be pretty confused as well. After he gets super drunk, he then falls asleep only to wake up in 1944, as Roland Weary is shaking him awake behind enemy lines, during the war (Not shown in the picture). I feel like the connection that Kurt Vonnegut makes between Billy's past and present lives are kept constant with the fact that he is a generally messy/clumsy person, and we can see that in his life during the war and in his life after war. An example of this could be when he is cheating on his wife, being wildly drunk.
Present -> Past
This passage is significant since it gives a sort of backstory as to when these time jumps started happening to Billy. I like to think if it almost as him thinking about the question she asks, and the jump to the past is him remembering the first time he "came unstuck." We can see how tired Barbara is with her father after she reads his letter. She is confused about the planet Tralfamadore, and suggests that they might need to put him in a nursing home like his mother.
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We can use this passage to correlate the description of the blade to white supremacy as a "social norm" in 19th century America because he is describing the blade as "solid ivory." As you said that we should read too much into this, I feel like this is a nod to the fact that ivory is a "hard, white material, made from the tusks and teeth of animals.." (direct quote from google). He also said that they have engravings/ciphers or "names of its long line of professors," those of which were probably all white. The blade was Luigi Capello's, receiving it from the Indian prince, Gaikowar, who had the blade for a while before giving it to him. Tom Driscoll stole the blade, trying to sell it, but since it was so distinctive, he couldn't. So, he killed Judge Driscoll with it instead. Since the blade was given to Luigi, everyone thought he was responsible for the murder. Once the checked the fingerprints, they found the real culprit.
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"The small frame of the ragged girl was quivering. Her features
were haggard from weeping, and her eyes gleamed from fear. She
grasped the urchin’s arm in her little trembling hands and they huddled in a corner. The eyes of both were drawn, by some force, to stare at the woman’s face, for they thought she need only to awake and all fiends would come from below.
They crouched until the ghost-mists of dawn appeared at the window, drawing close to the panes, and looking in at the prostrate, heaving body of the mother."
(For some reason, it wouldn't let me add the screenshot I took, so I just copied and pasted the text, but this is the last few lines of the 3rd chapter)
2. "The eyes of both were drawn, by some force, to stare at the woman’s face, for they thought she need only to awake and all [fiends] would come from below."
3. "The eyes of both were drawn, by some force, to stare at the woman’s face, for they thought she need only to awake and all monsters would come from below."
4. The change of "fiends" to "monsters" is significant because, obviously, it's very noticeable. When we hear the word "monster," I think we all make up a pretty similar image in our heads. Monsters can be related to the underworld, or hell, places with creatures beyond our belief. Monsters are usually talked about as horrifying, ugly, or obscene. Every time Crane has talked about the mother, it always mentions the fact that she is a heavy woman, and that she's usually accompanied by a drink. When the kids find her asleep on the floor, they're terrified to wake her up, in the fear of what she might do to them. When I first saw the word "fiends," I didn't know what it meant. "A person of great wickedness or maliciousness." When I hear that definition, I don't coincide "fiends" with "monsters." To me, "fiends" sounds much tamer than "monsters." This is why it changes the passage as much as it does, because monsters coming from below sounds much more bone-chilling than fiends coming from below. To me, "fiends" coming from below sounds sort of childish, like I wouldn't be able to take it seriously.
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The first picture represents "realistic" to me because of the way its so quiet, yet also so much is happening, much like the world. Trying to find something that represents the word "realistic" is hard. How do we show a picture of something real? Is it something living vs dead? I chose to interpret it like this: I love taking pictures this way, focusing on what's outside and dimming what's inside. You can see that it's a beautiful fall day outside, there's leaves on the ground, the trees are almost full, the lake is calm in the background. And then you look at what's inside, and it's the chaos of a dorm room shared by 2 girls. I love the contrast between quiet and chaos, and I think that really embodies the theme of realism.
The second picture represents utopia to me because the meaning of "utopia" is something that is absolutely perfect, something that can't get any more perfect then how it is in the moment. When I took that picture, I remember thinking that it was such a perfect picture because it had everything going for it, the waves were crashing at the perfect time, the clouds were the same shade of grayish-blue as the water was. The sunset was just the right shade of orange that coincides perfectly with the blues and grays of the water and the rocks. The sunsets here lasts about 3 minutes before it goes away, so it was kind of just the perfect moment, and I was lucky enough to capture it.
These two pictures relate to each other, not just because they are pictures of the same environment, but because they are both taken in the presence of nature. I kind of like to think about it as having the first picture, and viewing all it has to offer, and then seeing the lake in the background and zooming in on it and its beautiful qualities. I think they compliment each other very well.
I think these pictures makes a gesture to the realities outside of my space, genuinely because they ARE outside of my space. I think my space to be my dorm room, because it's where I spend most of my time. We have the general term for "outside your space" to be OUTSIDE in nature, which is where the second picture takes place. But then there are other terms for "outside your space" that talks mainly in theoretical forms. This could mean that you're very in your head while at the lake in the second picture and then when you come back to reality and go back inside, could be a form of coming outside of your space.
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