“Poo-tee-weet”

I was left somehow with an empty feeling with the ending of the book. As if it hadn’t concluded anything we didn’t already know, or maybe saying that all his book was a stupidity with the last sentence “Poo-tee-weet”.

There is not much to say that hasn’t been said before about the book. The last three chapters didn’t hold any new revelations, any new insight on the book. But if I had to make conclusions about this book, and stick to them, I’d say that Billy’s insanity becomes clearer in the end. It’s not confirmed, it’s not a final conclusion, it’s simply an implication we can make based on the facts. I had mentioned in previous blogs that probably the idea of the Tralfamadorians came from the novels of Kilgore Trout, because he had read them during a time in his life where he had to rebuild his beliefs. In the last chapters, an extra novel is mentioned, The Big Board, and it’s this novel that for me could confirm Billy’s insanity. It talks about two humans (man and woman) who are taken by extraterrestrials to a distant planet, and are displayed in a zoo there. For me, that IS Billy’s story, just as a Tralfamadorian would say, it has been there all along, and always will be.

Another thing that could be said is about Vonnegut’s appearances in the story, which was the most changing factor in the book. We thought he was an invisible character; then that he was a real character in Billy’s life, that they had met; then, that he was the only real character in the book, and that all other characters represented something related to war. That is a dilemma I will never have answered, but as far as I know, I’m confident to say that Vonnegut made appearances in the book to connect it to the real world. Evidently Billy and Billy’s story is fictional, but it might portray factual things about life, about war, about life after war. So with the purpose of us not getting lost in the imaginary world of Billy, the author connected it to himself, to keep it real.

The appearance of Professor Rumfoord from Harvard gives an interesting opinion. Why? He is seeking to write a book about WWII, and he wants to mention the huge success and necessity that was Dresden’s fire bombing. Billy is his roommate, but Rumfoord doesn’t show the slightest interest for Billy or his story about the Dresden fire bombing. I think this could be seen as Vonnegut’s way of critiquing historians who write about events like that. They never capture the whole truth about the moment, they make it sound heroic and necessary, but it will never be seen that way by people like Billy who actually lived through it. It comes to say: was all that slaughter really necessary? Was it really an act of heroism to kill so many people? It says that no one, as intelligent as they might be, seeks to write the whole truth about an event like that, because like Vonnegut says at the beginning, there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.

That brings me to my last point, the “Poo-tee-weet”. Is Vonnegut implying that his entire book isn’t more intelligent than a bird’s sound? Because there is nothing intelligent to be said about a massacre. Could his book be replaced by a simple “Poo-tee-weet” after a massacre? 

Search for Meaning

During “Chapter 7”, Vonnegut went back to the classical narrator style he had used for all of the chapters, except “Chapter 6”, like I talked about in my past blog post. I think that during this chapter the Tralfamadorian ideology of “how humans see time” is enforced a bit, and another piece is added: Tralfamadorian think that everything on earth (humans and animals) is a machine. We see just a snapshot of the object, we don’t get to understand the object fully, and we understand it on three dimensions because we can’t perceive the entirety of the fourth one. Objects change through time, so when we see it, we understand it at that given time. This novel follows somehow that idea. If we were able to perceive the entirety of time, we’d understand Billy’s life perfectly, but as we are incapable of that, we perceive each moment in his life. And that is how Vonnegut makes the character (Billy) evolve, and how he explains/describes him to us, attempting for us to see Billy entirely. We catch glimpses of “different” Billys, and in that manner, we get to form a big picture of him.

By far, the most interesting part of this chapter was that there finally was a literal hint that all of Billy’s time travels might be just dreams. Just after his head surgery, he remains unconscious for two days. Vonnegut wrote that in those two days, Billy dreamt some things that were real, and some that weren’t. Those that were real were the time travels. Things in the book start making more sense, they start sticking more to reality. Those dreams that were real, is Billy simply going “back in time” in his head, re-living the moments of war. Which, I think everyone would agree, are absolutely traumatizing. Those dreams that are real are actually memories, that because of their atrocity, he cannot forget. The brain is designed to make patterns, good or bad, it makes no difference, so people tend to constantly go back and remember those things, not because they want to, but because they cannot help it.

I hadn’t thought about it before, but this book reminds me a lot of Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. The author was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist that lived during WW2. He was a survivor of the Holocaust, and died in 1997 due to hear failure. But that`s not important. In his book, he describes the Holocaust, not on a physical level, but on how the tortures on a day to day basis affected the mind and spirit. How they were destroyed during the Holocaust. In the book he talks about why so many people that survived the Holocaust committed suicide right after they were released. Now that sounds a bit stupid doesn’t it? Surviving the biggest tragedy in the world, and then simply taking your life away. Frankl has another approach, which made me think about Billy’s time in the mental ward, and his constant “time travels” to the war. After people have gone through that much suffering, their minds (at an emotional level) and spirits are completely destroyed. The body survives, but what is the body without a spirit? Without a mind? They have no more faith in life, it holds no value to them, and that is why they commit suicide. For people who don’t do that, like Billy, they constantly go back to the events that changed their life; the events that managed to destroy their belief in life, in an eternal search for his life's meaning. 

Billy Pilgrim says...

To be honest, I didn’t enjoy “Chapter 6” as I have enjoyed the rest of the book. During this chapter I had the feeling, again, that Billy’s story branched out from a central plotline, which is his war story. Unlike the rest of the book, where that sensation was completely lost in the Tralfamadorian-like entanglement of ideas. Although, what did interest me pretty much in this chapter, was how the narration seemed different than the other chapters. In the past chapters it was Vonnegut telling us Billy’s story, as if it was a Tralfamadorian book, giving us details about it, making us question everything we thought about the book, and most interestingly, making himself part of the book, without ever making it autobiographical. But during this chapter, although Vonnegut does mention himself when they arrive at Dresden, he was more distant from the story. That is absolutely clear when he writes “Billy Pilgrim says…” twice. He makes it clear to the reader, that what he is writing, is Billy’s opinion, is what Billy claims happened, as if he were directly quoting Billy. That detail makes me think that Vonnegut doesn’t really believe in that part of the story, as if he was implying Billy was crazy, and frankly, I agree. I know that it is a pretty crazy idea that Billy was kidnapped by aliens, and that he is unstuck in time, and so on. But I didn’t have a problem with that: maybe because it might or might not be in Billy’s head, we’ll never know: or maybe because of the way Vonnegut wrote it, we never doubted it: or finally, because neither I nor anyone has lived what Billy claimed to live, so we are able to imagine it, but in this chapter, Billy talks about the future of the REAL world. He says there are zap guns, Chicago has a hydrogen bomb dropped in it, and that he becomes famous. Those things mess with my reality, because I know none of those are true. That’s why I think Billy is more delusional than ever, I can’t imagine any of those details about the “future” real world, because I know how the real world was and is.

Another interesting detail that caught my eye was the hatred and wrath that consumed Paul Lazzaro (he is a coward, HE never takes revenge, he sends someone to do it for him), which led him to always want to take revenge. I know that he is a “bone and flesh” character like Billy, or Vonnegut, but, couldn't it be possible, that all of them aren’t actually real? That Vonnegut is the only real character of the book. And that the rest of the characters represent different aspects of Vonnegut’s mind which were affected by war. I know it’s a bit of an abstract idea, but it could actually be possible that Vonnegut created all those characters to represent different things of Vonnegut that were affected by war, and the story revolves around his brief appearances in the book. In this order of ideas, Lazzaro could represent Vonnegut’s hate towards the Germans, and his feelings of revenge towards them.

I don’t believe in that interpretation of the book 100%, it’s rather complex, and I don’t have any true foundations to support the theory (maybe for now). But I thought it was important to mention that this thought came to mind. 

Coward or Genius

I really liked Francisco Serna’s blog post "Another Piece to the Puzzle". He discussed two points that I recognize as being very interesting, and give the book that complexity we’ve all seen. First of all, it’s the dilemma of what role Vonnegut plays in the novel, and what was the relation between Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut. Like Francisco, I was very confused on this. First I thought Billy was the personification of Vonnegut’s war trauma. Then I was doubtful if Vonnegut was the narrator or an actual character in the book. But as Francisco says it, all these doubts are ended in “Chapter 5”, when Vonnegut says “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”. There is clearly no point in disagreeing now, that Vonnegut is as real as a character as Billy Pilgrim is. They two were war veterans, in the same war. The lived the Dresden bombing together, they lived in the concentration camp with the British together. But now the question arises, how does Vonnegut know so much about Billy Pilgrim?

Another interesting detail of the book, that I hadn’t caught onto until Francisco told me, was how Vonnegut critiqued the Christians and the American people, but in an “indirect” manner. What do I mean? It’s obviously Vonnegut’s idea to critique them, it’s his opinion. But in the book, those opinions appear to be from other books, as if other people had written them, not Vonnegut. He critiques the Christians in “The Gospel from Outer Space” by Kilgore Trout, and critiques the Americans in Howard W. Campbell Jr.’s monogram. I completely agree with Francisco that this has a level of cowardice in it. But, I also think that putting those things behind those books is essential to the novel. Because it could be interpreted that Billy built part of his life after war based on Trout’s book. And clearly Vonnegut couldn’t say that he thought that, hence Billy thought that. Vonnegut had to place those ideas somewhere in the novel for Billy to access them. 

Kilgore Trout = Tralfamadorians?

Whilst reading “Chapter 5”, I started to get the feeling that there no longer was a relation between time and plot, like in most other books that everything happens in chronological order and that give the book a meaning. I used to think that the main “plotline” was Billy during the war in Germany, and that all the time travels occurred from here, and when they were over he would be back in Germany. But “Chapter 5” was such an entanglement of ideas and moments in different periods of time that I left my original idea behind. Now I see that all the moments are the plot itself, that time plays a huge role in the book, but at the same time is almost insignificant in terms of the plot’s development. I got the feeling that it was almost as if Vonnegut was trying to tell us Billy’s story as a Tralfamadorian book would. If seen as one, it makes complete sense; we would see Billy’s entire life. But we can’t see like Tralfamadorians, so we just see a compilation of random moments in Billy’s life, which don’t follow the traditional chronological order of a plot.

Destiny and the acceptance of it also play a big role in this chapter (actually in the whole book). I realized that Vonnegut exposes in his writing some things that resemble the Tralfamadorian ideology. Not only his writing style, like I described in the above paragraph, but his constant use of the phrase “so it goes” has some Tralfamadorian philosophy in it. Throughout the book it has been explained that these aliens see every single moment, but that each moment can never be altered. Every moment exists, will exist, and has always existed the way it is. So we can merely accept each moment, because everything is predetermined. We cannot avoid war; we cannot avoid anything, not even the end of the whole universe. Which Tralfamadorians have already seen; it’s one of their own who accidentally blows up the whole universe. But as their philosophy goes, that moment has always been that way, so they can merely accept it, and not blame it on them or anyone, it simply is. Vonnegut’s use of the phrase “so it goes” is in fact this philosophy; he can do nothing about the person that just died, he can merely accept it, but not blame it on him. Also, Vonnegut could introduce this ideology into the book due to his war trauma as a way to accept all the tragedies that happened in war.

Another interesting detail that I caught onto while reading “Chapter 5” was the tremendous similarity between Kilgore Trout’s books and the Tralfamadorian ideology. This similarity led me to think that the Tralfamadorians could be simply an invention of Billy’s. Why do I think this? Because Billy starts reading these novels while he is at the mental hospital, during a time in his life where life itself has failed for him. He says it himself; he is trying to rebuild everything around him due to his war trauma. So the fact that he was in such a vulnerable state and that Trout’s novels helped him through it, could easily lead to the conclusion that Billy introduced Trout’s ideas into his new rebuilt view of life.

Billy Pilgrim: Murdered?

I know many people wouldn’t opt to do this: two reading blogs about the same chapter. But for me, “Chapter 4” had so many details to look at and analyze (as it might be obvious from my past reading blog). In the past blog I really got into talking about Vonnegut’s use of “mustard gas and roses” as a description of his breath. But I left out other stuff that I also consider important in the chapter, for example the role fate or destiny plays in the Tralfamadorian ideology. Or how the chronological order of things directly affect its meaning. Or finally how Billy’s death is foreshadowed.

After Billy receives the call from the drunk stranger, he watches a movie about World War II. But as he is unstuck in time, he is able to see the movie backwards and then forwards. Here is where the idea of “order of events=meaning” comes into our mind. It could also be a simple fact of our perception. When Billy watches the movie backwards, its meaning is also turned around. Vonnegut tells us how the movie now talks about planes taking back all the damage they did, taking back the bombs, leaving them on the factories, the bombs being unassembled, and how everything is turned back to the point where it cannot hurt anyone. In his mind, Billy continues this backwards movie, until Hitler becomes a baby, and all humanity works back towards creating Adam and Eve. This is a perfect example of Vonnegut further messing around with the concept of time in Billy’s story. This event also defies the Tralfamadorian perception of time, making us see how chronological order of things is important for its meaning. If Billy had the same perception of time as the Tralfa
madorians, this wouldn’t have happened, because they think that each moment simply is and there is no further explanation of that. But when Billy changed the chronological order of the movie, each moment was altered to represent something completely different.

In my past blog post I had mentioned how interesting it was that Vonnegut could introduce little details that seemed insignificant, but actually contributed a lot to the development or understanding of the story. In the beginning of the chapter, this detail is the breath of mustard and gas. But later on, Vonnegut actually foreshadows Billy’s death. When Weary dies in the boxcar, he let everyone know that it had been Billy’s fault, and he wanted to be avenged. Paul Lazzaro, whom Vonnegut describes as having even worst of a body than Billy, had promised to Weary that he would make Billy pay for his death. In fact, I’m not sure if this is actually how Billy is going to die, but it could be very possible. Seeing how Vonnegut gives away important parts of the story in such small details. I’m eager to keep reading and find out whether if this is actually the way that Billy Pilgrim dies. 

Mustard Gas and Roses

In the very beginning of “Chapter 4”, there is a quote that jumped at me as soon as I read it. It was: “Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath-mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. Billy hung up.” Why did it jump at me? It reminded me to the phrase in “Chapter 3” where Vonnegut introduces himself directly into Billy’s story (like I talked about in my past blog post). This quote has exactly the same effect. In “Chapter 1”, Vonnegut talked about how, searching for information for his book, he used to get drunk and call old friends. He specifically said in two parts, that he had a breath of mustard gas and roses, just like the guy who called Billy. So, could this mysterious caller, actually be Vonnegut? It amazes me how Vonnegut can give this story such weird and interesting twists, in such a subtle way. Where one apparently insignificant detail, could alter my interpretation of the book, or at least Vonnegut’s role in it.

This quote also refutes my idea that “Chapter 1” might have been written before the rest of the book. Honestly, I believe that it’s more logical to think that Vonnegut described himself as having “mustard gas and roses” in his breath, and then placing himself into the story. Rather than writing the whole story, and then describing himself as having that scent in his breath, or introducing an extra event into his book just so he could be part of it. This next part might make no sense, because it could contradict everything I just said, but I actually am this confused about this idea. I haven’t been able to decide which interpretation to stick by. It could be possible that Vonnegut wrote the quote about the mustard gas and roses in the drunk’s breath, and then, identified himself with that quote, thus leading him to describe his own breath that way in “Chapter 1”.

In my past blog post, I explained how I thought Billy was the personification of Vonnegut’s trauma, and that Vonnegut was an invisible character in Billy’s story. But in this quote used in “Chapter 4”, he physically brings himself into the story. He makes himself a character in the night that redefined Billy’s life. Not an invisible character that acts as a narrator, but a flesh and bone character able to make calls. Although, with the complexness of things like time in this book, Vonnegut could be both the invisible character/narrator, and the flesh and bone character that makes the call.

Another idea that came to me, actually during the process of analyzing this quote, is that Vonnegut might not actually be introducing himself into Billy’s story. He could be introducing Billy’s story into his life, into his world. If Billy is Vonnegut’s trauma, it would make sense that he tries to connect it to his real life, telling the reader that Billy’s story has some truth to it. That it’s not just a bizarre fiction story.

Soldier exposed to mustard gas

I had no idea what mustard gas was, so I investigated a bit on it. It was actually a chemical weapon used during the war, it was categorized as a “lethal gas”, and it can also be called “sulfur mustard”. It gets its name from the yellow color it sometimes has, and the mustard-like scent it carries. It’s an alkylating agent, and what does that mean? This chemical destroys DNA and cells, and it liquefies any tissue it comes in contact with. It doesn’t kill instantly, but rather tortures the person for more than 48 hours. It’s so curious how Vonnegut combines two opposing things to represent his breath, mustard gas (which like I just said) represents a horrible death, and roses which represent love and passion. I think it’s almost as if Vonnegut was trying to tell us how confused war had left him, how deeply traumatized he was.   

Billy: Vonnegut's Trauma

In my past reading blog, I had briefly mentioned that there might be a connection between Billy Pilgrim and Vonnegut himself. While discussing with other people, this connection evolved into the idea that Billy Pilgrim might be a representation of some sort of Vonnegut, and his disturbed mind after war. But as I read through chapter three, that conclusion shifted a bit, because in one point, Vonnegut writes “I was there. So was my old war buddy, Bernard V. O’Hare.” This looks like it should’ve been a foot note, but it wasn’t, so it introduces Vonnegut himself into Billy’s story, making me doubt whether they might be the same person. I got the feeling that Vonnegut might be the mysterious narrator of Billy’s story, as if he was another person that was in the same train kart as Billy. Or that Vonnegut gave life to his war trauma, and named it Billy. I know this idea is confusing, so I’ll do my best to explain. Billy is the representation of Vonnegut’s war trauma, and Vonnegut, is like an invisible character in the story, watching his trauma (Billy) evolve, and that’s why he is able to jump through time.

Through the chapter, I also confirmed my idea about the phrase so commonly used by Vonnegut “So it goes.” Like I commented on Mateo’s blog, Vonnegut uses it right after he talks about someone’s death. It seems as if it was his way of accepting things and moving on, like Billy Pilgrim’s poster in his office: "God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference." That poster might be a way of Vonnegut introducing his ideology into Billy’s story, or subconsciously explaining his phrase “so it goes.” Death cannot be changed, merely accepted, and that is what Vonnegut does.

Finally, the cyclical use of time I had mentioned in previous blog posts keeps going with the time travels. The story doesn't run on a straight line, but rather jumps back and forth, between the present (or past) and the future, giving us a better idea of Billy's entire life. 

The Entirety of Billy´s Life

With the statement at the end of Chapter one, and beginning of Chapter 2: “Billy has become unstuck”, I get the feeling that the main character of the book, might actually be tied to Vonnegut himself. Vonnegut´s writing process is cyclical, like his altered perception of time. When he says Billy has become unstuck, he is actually referring to the point in Billy´s life where he had his first “time travel”, but as Vonnegut´s writing is related to time, I think it could represent himself saying something like “finally I could start wringing”.

During Chapter 2, the narrator tells us the background of Billy´s story. He was born in 1922, and in 1967 survived an airplane crash that caused him to go crazy and talk about being kidnapped by aliens, where his perception of time was altered. Vonnegut also introduces Billy´s daughter, Barbara, who has grown old in spirit due to her father´s ill mental state. Then, the story continues to tell the reader about how things led to Billy´s first “time travel”; which in my opinion was just death´s delirium.

Billy had tagged along three American soldiers, who called themselves The Three Musketeers. While traveling through the Luxembourg forest, Billy leans against a tree, and in his exhaustion, he experiences a time warp in his mind. I don’t have clear if he travels to the future in his mind, but if I’m right that the present was 1944, then he did travel to the future. Seeing glimpses of what his life could be, instead of the suffering he was living in the Luxembourg forest. As a result of this delirium, the two scouts from The Three Musketeers, decide to ditch Billy and Weary (the other guy from the group that always pushed Billy to keep going).

Since the beginning, Vonnegut reveals the beginning, the middle and what could be the end of Billy´s story. Making us see his life, not as a sequence of linear moments, but rather his whole life as one. Understanding the instability and confusion of Billy as he jumps from time to time in his life. 

Chapter 1 - Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut

I think “Chapter 1” is the wrong name for the first part of Kurt Vonnegut´s Slaughterhouse-five. It should simply be called “Introduction”, because honestly, that’s what it is. It is completely different from the rest of the novel, because it is autobiographical. Vonnegut talks, in first person, about Dresden and the war experiences and how he intends to write a book about it. Though I think the main idea of this introduction, is the confusing writing process of Vonnegut, as he struggles to put the experiences on paper. He tells us that he doesn't remember almost anything, so he goes and visits his veteran friend O´Hare, to see if together, they can shed light upon the events that constituted his experiences in Dresden, as a war prisoner. Vonnegut clearly comes out and says that he is incapable of writing this book, that in his messy process, he encounters what we could call a wall. He is blocked by it, already having his brilliant outline, but not being able to write the book. 

I am completely familiar with the problem that Vonnegut describes in “Chapter 1”. Honestly, I even encountered it at the beginning of this assignment. Though, I´d never expect a successful writer to encounter those types of problems, just like people don’t expect doctors to get sick. But as Vonnegut puts it, it happens, even to the best of us, and it´s hard to get over it. I think maybe it happens to him because of his mixed feelings towards the war, or because he creates a writing process in his perception of time: cyclical. 

His perception of time first changes when he is stuck in Boston before going to Dresden. Where he says that it seemed as if someone was playing with clocks, or time itself. This perception if time is show in the lumberjack song, whose last lime is also the first line, making it an endless loop. Will this perception of time take a bigger role in the rest of the book? 

Vonnegut talks so clearly about his confusion before starting the book, that I get the feeling that he actually wrote this “Chapter 1” after finishing the whole book. Because honestly, if he was in fact in such a mess of ideas as he describes, would he really be able to look upon it so clearly and describe it as he does? 

The Perfect Life by John Koethe

In “The Perfect Life” by John Koethe, I don’t think he describes a perfect life, but rather how our perception of life changes as we grow old. As kids, everything makes us happy, we have no disappointments, no regrets, and we look forward to the next day. But as we grow old, no matter how interesting the present is, he says everything “turns colorless and cold” (Koethe J. – The Perfect Life). I relate to the poem in the sense that, as kids, everything is wonderful. That happened to me. As a little boy, my life was filled with magic (like Santa), and everything, from the smallest thing, seemed so incredible. My biggest problems were limited to not finding my favorite toy, or the TV show I liked wasn’t playing at the moment. Thinking back, all that can be simply explained by lack of experience (I’m not saying it wasn’t great, I’m just saying that it was so great because we hadn’t lived as much as we have now). As I grew up, gaining experience, the magic vanished, and the things that I saw as special were just incorporated to my everyday life, becoming invisible, and most of the time boring. It has come to the point that now I find TV boring.

Some things, stay special forever

But as all those things lost their “specialness”, new things came along, things that I never thought of as a little kid. Yes, problems now are more serious than they used to be, but happiness is deeper and more special. The fact that the things we saw as special when kids lose their magic as we grow old doesn’t mean that our life is boring. It just means that it’s time to get out there and find new things to make us happy. Life has so many things to be found, it has so many variations, that I have to disagree with the second part of the poem. You have the option to make your life boring, or perfect, because perfection is a matter of perception.

Right now, I think my life is perfect, unlike Koethe in his poem. I’m happy, I have everything I want, and everything I need. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t lived as long as he has. But I’m certain, that if I play my cards right, I’ll be as happy in the future. Yes, probably what is special today won’t be in the future, but just like it happened since I was a little boy, I’ll find new things that will seem special, and fill my life with happiness. 

Inferno, Ring 3: The Gluttonous - Poetic justice?

In ring three of Dante's Inferno, the gluttonous lie in the filthy ground, all covered in mud and the filthy rain that falls constantly over them. They lie there, basically like pigs, without seeing or even knowing about the people around them. I see that as poetic justice for two reasons: they lived their life eating, and maybe behaving like pigs, so now in hell, they literally have to live as pigs would do. The second reason why I believe there is poetic justice is their life was shallow, empty and selfish, everything was tied to their addiction. So now they are condemned to live (not only as pigs) without being noticed, and they are given no importance whatsoever.

What is a just punishment for a murder?

I think that prison for life would be a just consequence for a murder in first degree. If the murderer took a life away, he should now pay with his. But what would be the point of taking the murder's life away, when the consequence should be for him to realize the evil that he has done? So instead of taking his life away, put him in prison for life, where he can regret what he did.

Rewrite

A lifetime in jail is a just punishment, because if he took a life away, he should now pay with his.

Allegory definition

Allegory: A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.