I chose to write about the quote "so it goes" because I think it is an interesting quote. The author puts his marks on the book with this quote. Also billy makes it seem like we should really pay attention to this quote. “So it goes” is said multiple time in Slaughterhouse-Five. It it said on page 96, “The British had no way of knowing, but the candles and soap were made from fat of the rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State.” The phrase “so it goes” is used, usually after death or a destruction causing in many deaths, by the author as a way of Billy coping with death. In page 96 it is used to mourn the deaths caused by the holocaust. The term itself is used as an explanation, there was nothing that could have been done about those deaths or any deaths really, “so it goes” is a phrase used to explain that nothing can be done about death, it happens to everyone and no one can stop it. In chapter four page 73, “so it goes” is used again. “The champagne was dead. So it goes.” The term is used quite differently but the still the same. The quote is not used as in referring to death of a human but the meaning stays the same. As explained before, “so it goes” refers to not being able to do anything about death. The champagne represents that no one can do anything about things that happen, the …show more content…
On page 3 when the narrator tells his friend he is going to write an anti-war book the friend responds, “Why don’t you write anti-glacier book instead?” by which the narrator explains that even if war didn’t keep coming like glaciers there would still be death. “So it goes” explains that death is impossible to avoid. Like glaciers, you can’t stop war before it’s time. Vonnegut was trying to say that life goes on, you shouldn't try to stop things that are like inedible, like war, glaciers, and
Kurt Vonnegut’s Voice, Cohesion, and Rhythm in Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five (1969) has been acclaimed by scholars for decades specifically for Vonnegut’s iconic, albeit unusual use of voice, cohesion, and rhythm. In Slaughterhouse-five Vonnegut uses a very unique voice that has come to define most of Vonnegut’s work, specifically his use of dark humor, meta-fiction, informality, disassociation; and the famous line, “So it goes” that appears 106 times in the novel. Vonnegut’s cohesion, or more accurately lack thereof, is unique to Slaughterhouse-five as the story is told in a nonlinear order that uses various flashbacks, time travel, and “sticking” in and out of time and space to tell the tale of the main character Billy Pilgrim. Shifting from first- to third-person point of view frequently, Vonnegut alters the rhythm of the novel. To provide apologies
The deep complexity of its message is furthered by Olds’ use of metaphor. In describing the unburied corpses strewn about the cemetery, she notes a “hand reaching out / with no sign of peace, wanting to come back.” Through indirect metaphor, she is able to not only bring emotion to the stiffness of a frozen hand, but ponder a greater question—whether the “eternal rest” of death is peace at all. Despite the war, despite “the bread made of glue and sawdust,” and despite “the icy winter and the siege,” those passed still long for life. Human cruelty and the horrors of existence permeate even the sanctity of death. In war, nothing is
The tone of the first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a mixture of candid and matter of fact, with an underlying tone of indifference and detachment. This tone is displayed throughout the chapter with Vonnegut’s use of informal language and phrases, such as the first sentence “All this happened, more or less.” He conveys this tone not only through phrases such as “and so on” or “so it goes”, but with stylistic elements with his use of punctuation, spaces, repetition, and ellipses. He uses this tone in the first chapter to set the audience up for how the rest of the novel will be written, and to display to the audience his style of writing and how it may not always be reliable.
middle of paper ... ... It is clear that although Vonnegut's picture of the modern man is often bleak, he never totally abandons the glimmer of hope that accompanies the fact that life has its moments of grandeur. He encourages the modern reader to escape the question "why me" and urges us to embrace a philosophy that consistently reminds us that even in the midst of the most cruel (and the most celebrated) events, humanity retains all of its virtue and vice.
Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place in Slaughterhouse-Five allows him to use the phrase "So it goes" for special impact . The phrase appears after every death scene. It allows the bridge from death to life, and it also allows Vonnegut to change the time frame or place of the action. According to one source, the phrase "So it goes" appears in the novel over 100 times (Boomhower).
Vonnegut's writing style throughout the novel is very flip, light, and sarcastic. The narrator's observations and the events occurring during the novel reflect a dark view of humanity which can only be mocked by humor. At the beginning of the novel the narrator is researching for a book he is writing. The book was to be about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the lives of the people who created the bomb. The narrator travels through the plot of the story, with characters flying in and out, in almost a daze. He is involved in events which are helplessly beyond his control, but which are inevitably leading to a destination at the end.
Vonnegut says, "so it goes. " It's as if he's saying that that kind of thing happens all the time and since no one can stop it we shouldn't get all worked up about it.... ... middle of paper ... ...
He comments on racism that it is easier to just ignore racism because everyone is equal. We as a high school seniors know about racism and the author makes it more clearly that we should ignore racism. This novel is a science fiction, also it switches the tone from first person to third or third person to first. On page 23 the author Kurt Vonnegut shift from first person to third person voice and On page 67 the author shifts from third person to first person because it makes the novel more real. This novel is not only about war this book is about how to write and how to make the novel more realistic. This novel is great example for people who wants to write books.
Vitale, Tom. “Kurt Vonnegut: Still Speaking To The War Weary.” www.npr.org. May 31, 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut is an anti war novel told by the narrator who is a minor character in the story. Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has come "unstuck in time. "The bombing of Dresden is what destroyed Billy. Dresden’s destruction shows the destruction of people who fought in the war: the all the people who died. Some people, like the main character, Billy Pilgrim, are not able to function normally like before because of what they saw, because of their experience. Throughout the book, Billy starts hallucinating about his experiences with the Tralfamadorians: he wants to escape the world which was destroyed by war, a war that he does not and cannot understand. Vonnegut uses the technique of repetition.. The main repetition is “so it goes” which is told after anything related to death, he also uses other repetitions throughout the book. The major theme of the story is the Destructiveness of War. Vonnegut uses repetition to reinforce the theme of the story.
So he saw saw how war affected everyone because his job in the was was to carry the injured to get help. He saw what happened to everyone. So when he said “humanity I love you” it is ironic because at the end of the poem he said “humanity I hate you” which is a more accurate description of his feeling towards all of humanity, so what he means with this quote is that the governing leaders or every power are putting people 's lives in their pockets and then not caring so they sent them off to die in the war (WWI) because over 14 million soldiers died. They sat down and forgot that their are people dieing so they can sit down and drink tea. Just like Kat said “Give 'em all the same grub and all the same pay/And the war would be over and done in a day." (Chapter 3, pg. 41) if everyone got paid the same and everyone did their part then the war would be over a lot faster. Furthermore in Russia (when it was called the Soviet Union) Vladimir Lenin said, “Hundreds of billions of capital have been invested… bringing death, hunger, ruin... to the peoples.” This shows that the world was put into a crisis because of the “criminal war”. which
In any case, the reader encounters much dark humor in the novel. There is a sense of an embittered humor with the Tralfamadorian phrase, "So it goes," which is repeated over 100 times in the novel. John May says that Vonnegut's purpose in repeating the phrase after each statement of death is to build its meaning with each incremental refrain (Contemporary Literary Criticism 8: 530). At first, the saying can be looked upon as funny in an ironic way. However, as one reads further, the phrase becomes irritating and irreverent. The reader cannot fathom so many deaths meaning so little. According t o Wayne McGinnis, it is most likely Vonnegut's intent to cause such feelings from the reader (Contemporary Literary Criticism 5: 468). This punctuating phrase forces the reader to look at the novel's deaths one after the other.
Slaughterhouse Five is not a book that should be glanced over and discarded away like a dirty rag. Slaughterhouse Five is a book that should be carefully analyzed and be seen as an inspiration to further improve the well-being of mankind. Vonnegut makes it clear that an easy way to improve mankind is to see war not as a place where legends are born, but rather, an event to be avoided. Intelligent readers and critics alike should recognize Vonnegut’s work and see to it that they make an effort to understand the complexities behind the human condition that lead us to war.
“Slaughterhouse-Five” is an anti-war novel. It describes a flesh-and-blood world. Main character is Billy Pilgrim, he is a time traveler in this book, his first name Billy is from the greatest novelist in the USA in 19 century’s novel “Billy Budd” ; and his last name is from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. Differently, the main character in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” ’s traveling has meaning and discovering, Billy Pilgrim’s traveling just has violence and escape. In the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut ’s main character, Billy Pilgrim is sane and his time travel is half in his mind half is real. He is looked so innocent and weakness, there is a sentence which is spoken by Billy Pilgrim “So it goes.” (2) This quotation shows that a poignant sense of helplessness.
The narrator appreciates Lot’s wife deeply because she “looks back” which is what American society fails to do after World War II and, in doing so, fails to recognize their own faults. Rumfoord epitomizes this attitude when he tells Billy, a survivor of the Dresden firebombing, that the bombing of Dresden “had to be done” (253). The diction of ‘had’ and the emphasis placed on it indicates an attitude that America’s obliged to destroy the unarmed, civilian city. Furthermore, ‘done’ has a double meaning in the...