and then there's fate..

       The idea of fate versus free will is a very complex and controversial topic. In this novel, the Tralfamadorians say that humans are the only life-form in the galaxy that believe in free will. However, when the outer-worldly beings look at someone, they see their entire life; past, present, and future. Therefore, there is no such thing as free will, because everything is already set in stone. The author of Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, believes that time is an irrelevant creation of man. Kurt Vonnegut, like the Tralfamadorians, doesn't believe in free will. When Vonnegut was a teenager he was stripped of all of his free will and thrown into the front lines of a war. This is why he decided to write a science fiction novel based off of a character who also has no free will, visited by aliens that reinforce the fact that nothing can be changed about his past because his future has already happened.