Ivory Blue Feet

Blue and Ivory Feet Step Into Wonderland

In chapter 4, Billy suffers from insomnia in the night oh his daughter’s wedding day. Meanwhile, to distract himself he paces around the house. “He [Billy] looked down at his bare feet. They were ivory and blue. “(Pg. 72). Of all the things Billy could haveve noticed, he observed his feet in their particular state of color. Their state may suggest or symbolize depression, coldness, and unstableness. These negative states certainly come from Belly’s traumatic past and war experience. An important and life changing moment like his daughter’s wedding are an impacting event which can cause anyone mental or emotional discomfort.  Eventually this sad pair of feet dragged Billy to a bottle of champagne, which in Billy’s mind seemed to say, “Drink Me”.

I connected this almost instantly to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  In a scene, after falling down the rabbit’s hole, she finds herself in a room which was un-proportionally larger than her. After eating a cake, and growing to an abnormal size she needs to grow back to an even smaller size in order to obtain a key. Alice finds a bottle, just like Billy, labeled “Drink Me”. They both take a drink experiencing a similar reaction of “negativeness”.  Alice decreases in size while Billy´s champagne is dead and tastes like 7-up.

After both of them ingest the “Drink Me” substance they become unstuck in time.  Alice gets lost in Wonderland, she goes through a long journey of mysterious and random adventures which in the Wonderland realm lasts for days, but in the real world it take some minutes. Billy gets unstuck in time too when he is the kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians.  He travels through his past; present, and future life in only moments, when on real -world time it would take him a lifetime.

So It Goes… a pair of ivory blue feet took Billy to Alice’s Wonderland which then unleashed him from time and into a new dimension, who knew?