On Your Right: A Human

"And Billy traveled in time to the zoo in Tralfamadore. He was forty four years old, on display under a geodesic dome." pg 111. Billy is taken as a human specimen by aliens to Tralfamadore, where he is put into an exhibit to represent a human being. The case in which he is involved is very similar to the movie: Planet of the Apes. In Planet of the Apes human beings are also taken hostage by aliens who do exactly the same thing we do with species we have here on earth, make them become a sort of attraction. We as humans make species live in cages as if we were the ones to know everything, and the ones to decide where to have them living. Even being so similar as these two are, there are also some similarities between the two. In the case of Planet of the Apes people are treated more as slaves and as beings without a brain. They are constantly being treated badly by the ape guards and finally have to end up escaping from them in order to be free. In the case of Billy it is different. In his case he is given many commodities such as being in a human environment, and being able to do whatever he pleases in there. He is not mistreated by the Tralfamadorians and even has peaceful and interesting conversations with them, apart from knowing he will someday be free and return to Earth. Even though in both cases humans are being trapped as an exhibit or as an inferior being, they both know what it feels like to come into the position we as humans have imposed on earth on the many species that share it with us.