Circularity of time in Slaughterhouse Five

Today in class we discussed in what ways Slaughterhouse Five was a cyclical novel, and in which ways it followed different sorts of timelines. While I would not say that the book itself flows in a fully circular manner, there are many instances in which the circularity of time is alluded to.
Take the Yon Yonson song for example. This is a very explicit case of Kurt Vonnegut mentioning how his life seems to follow a distinct cycle. The simple, flowing repetition of the Yon Yonson song is very similar to that of a common look at cyclical time. Repetition in general references cyclical time, and there are many instances of repetition in this novel. The phrase "so it goes" is repeated very frequently. Nestling like spoons, crying, and being juggled by Magic Fingers are all often mentioned as well. Billy Pilgrim himself alludes to times circularity in the ending of his speech, in which he says "Farewell, hello, farewell, hello." The circularity of this is exaggerated by the fact that Pilgrim repeats this exact phrase at the end of every one of his speeches. Billy's whole life is very circular, in that the repeats parts of his life in Tralfamadore, then in Earth, then in Tralfamadore, etc. The most explicit instances in which Billy travels cyclically through time are when he relives an exact moment, and when he goes from his death to his birth.
I do not think that Vonnegut wants to display time as completely cyclical, but I do think that he is trying to reveal the many ways in which it does follow cyclical patterns. He shows time to be a combination of both cyclical and linear time.

Time and Free Will

Kurt Vonnegut bring up many interesting observations about time in Slaughterhouse Five. The Tralmafadorian sense of time is a very interesting one, which is hard for us Earthlings to wrap our minds around. The same goes for Billy Pilgrim's ability to travel in time. Both of these beg the question of the existence of free will, because if either is true it would seem that free will is impossible. This is obvious in the Tralfamadorian view because they can see all that has happened and all that will happen, and so all of that must happen, and cannot be changed.
For Billy, however, free will or the lack thereof takes a slightly different form. He knows how he dies, because he has experienced it before, but he cannot see his whole life laid out in front of him, and so when he shelters in slaughterhouse five during the firebombing of Dresden, he does so for the first time, even though he already has memories of doing so. He knows that he will survive because he knows how he dies many years later, but he only knows how he survives and what he does thereafter form his memories when he is an older man. Of course he has already lived some of what happens afterward, but some will be new to him. It would seem that if he remembers something happening to him when he is old, then it must happen when he is young, and so there is not free will. However, his memories might be wrong or fading. So, while there cannot be free will because he is stuck forever dying in the same way and crashing in the same plane, he does not know precisely how he will get to those points. Because of this his view of the world differs from the Tralfamadorians, and he retains at least a slight sense that there may be free will.
The lack of free will brings up many new problems pertaining to how someone with no free will should live their life. Of course they are stuck as to how to act, but are their thoughts also set in amber. I would say yes, but that knowledge of there not being free will will surely affect their thinking, and will have been preset to do so. What would be the point of thinking about what to do if it is already going to happen? What would be the point of trying to change anything? Of caring? Billy is very affected by all of these questions, and so lives his life as if in a dream, mechanically moving from action to action, not very aware of the world around him. He tries to be friendly because, since nothing can change, there is not point in being mean. His personality is obviously affected by his time-travel and by his apparent knowledge about time and free will, but that does not prove or disprove the existence of time-travel or of this view of time, because he acts as he does due to his views, and not necessarily because he has time-traveled. His thinking he has traveled through time and space would alter his personality in the same way as if he had actually done these things. This brings to question if his thinking he has done them has, in some sense, and on some weird plane of being, made them happen.