“A piece a cake,” this is a phrase commonly used unlike the phrase “so it goes.” In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut the phrase “so it goes” is used 106 times. This three worded phrase does not seem like it has more meaning than the four worded phrase, “a piece a cake,” but it actually plays an important part in the novel. The phrase “so it goes” is specifically used after a person has died in the book, which occurs frequently. Vonnegut uses this phrase to demonstrate that whatever happens in life happens and so it goes. Kurt Vonnegut starts off with the main character, Billy Pilgrim, trying to find a meaning in this war world because he finds “life meaningless.” Tralfamadorians however simply reply to a corpse by saying “so it goes.” Soon enough Billy starts seeing corpses the same way and feeling nothing. He does not waste time to feel bad about the death of somebody, he just moves on with himself. Billy even admits that he has changed the way …show more content…
People are always going to find a way to start a fight or harm others. They accepted the fact that both of these things will always occur. They also knew that they could not prevent certain things from happening, “among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.” This quote also shows how unpredictable war and death can be “You needn’t worry about bombs, by the way. Dresden is an open city. It is undefended and contains no war industries or troop concentrations of any importance,” Dresden however does get bombed and kills over 100,000 thousand people. It also shows that war does not have to make sense and you are not always safe even when you think you are.“Poo-tee-weet?” is also an
The plot of Slaughterhouse- Five revolves around World War Two, especially the bombing of Dresden from a soldier’s perspective. Vonnegut vividly describes the destructive nature of war through accounts of ambush, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and massacres. However, he also expresses the mentally and emotionally damaging effects of war with the pure insanity of Billy Pilgrim. One of many instances illustrating Billy’s altered state of mind in the war is when he arrives in a prisoner of war camp. The English prisoners put on a production of Cinderella for their American guests and following a comical line Billy loses control. “He not only laughed – he shrieked. He went on shrieking until he was carried out of the shed into another, where the hospital was” (Slaughterhouse 98). This is a single example of the deplorable state of Billy’s mental sanity. The reader is already aware that Billy also begins to hallucinate and have crazy notions that he was abducted by aliens. Billy even acquires a sort of catchphrase that clearly demonstrates how emotionally distant Billy has become because of the war. Every time death is brought up, Billy has only one thing to say about it: “So it goes” (Slaughterhouse 214). This shows that Billy has become numb to pain, anguish, fear, and even life itself. To Billy, the end of the war did not actually bring freedom, but trapped him inside the horrors of his memories and deranged
In order to illustrate the devastating affects of war, Kurt Vonnegut afflicted Billy Pilgrim with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which caused him to become “unstuck in time” in the novel. Billy Pilgrim illustrates many symptoms of PTSD throughout the story. Vonnegut uses these Slaughterhouse Five negative examples to illustrate the horrible and devastating examples of war. The examples from the book are parallel to real life experiences of war veterans, including Vonnegut’s, and culminate in a very effective anti-war novel.
People react differently to tragedies: some mourn, some speak up, and some avoid the sorrow. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut suggests the danger and inhumanity of turning away from the discomfort by introducing Billy Pilgrim as someone who is badly affected by the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, and the Tralfamadorians as the aliens who provide an easy solution to Billy. It is simpler to avoid something as tragic as death, but Vonnegut stresses the importance of confronting it. Vonnegut, like many artists, expresses his ideas through his creations. The significance of art is not confined to helping and inspiring the general public; the process of creating art also becomes another form of coping mechanism for artists.
Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim to mirror how people cope with trauma and disillusionment. Upon Billy’s return from war, he is diagnosed with PTSD, and eventually creates Tralfamadorians to help him make sense of his world. The aliens teach him to use the phrase, so it goes, whenever he hears of tragedies or death; however, over the course of the novel the maxim transitions from being an anecdote used to accept how the world works into a warning that presages how the world will end.
In the Novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut teaches the audience to cope with inner demons and failure to do so can lead to a detrimental state of mind. Vonnegut gives a clear understanding of that in this novel, with himself being a past world war 2 veteran he employs those ideas into a character. A character named Billy Pilgrim, whom was also a soldier and happened to see the bombing in Dresden, Germany occur. Vonnegut proves a message or theme within the actions that Billy Pilgrim makes, or situations in his surrounding that cause billy to be left in a harmful state of mind.
The anti-war message is upheld further with the ironies that Vonnegut provides in the book. One example is "when one of the soldiers, a POW, survives the fire-bombing, but dies afterward from the dry heaves because he has to bury dead bodies" (Vit). When Billy and one of his comrades join to other scouts the Vonnegut portrays as well trained, Vonnegut displays irony by killing the skillful scouts and allows the less competent Pilgrim and Roland to survive. Roland does eventually die because he is forced to walk around in wooden clogs that turn his feet to pudding. The greatest example of irony is seen in what Vonnegut claims to be the climax of the story. He explains the situation before the story even begins. He is referring to the:
In the novel, Billy Pilgrim experiences things in his life he can’t control and he doesn’t feel comfortable in those situations. One of those experiences is when Billy is drafted for World War II. He obviously doesn’t want this because he has to give up his career as an eye doctor. When Billy goes into the war he is a chaplains assistant. This displays how he is not equipped with what he needs to fight and survive in the war; however, he does survive. The other soldiers that are fighting with the proper equipment end up getting killed. This situation in Billy’s life is significant because it shows his fate and how he doesn’t have free will to decide on his own. Against Billy’s will he went to war and survived when he shouldn’t have. Billy couldn’t
The point of view that Slaughterhouse-Five is written from also affects the way the reader fells about time after reading the novel. Since the story is narrated by a omniscient being that is everywhere with Billy Pilgrim, the reader gets a first hand account of every event in his life. Also Billy is very relaxed and accepting all things around him. A good example of this is Billy's habit of following every death with "so it goes". (Vonnegut 69) The repetition of this phrase not only de-emphasizes death, but also helps Vonnegut assert control over the readers response after a death. (Dawley 2) The way Billy
The eight ridiculous Dresdeners ascertained that these hundred ridiculous creatures really were American fighting men fresh from the front. They smiled, and then they laughed. Their terror evaporated. There was nothing to be afraid of. Here were more crippled human beings, more fools like themselves. Here was light
While never a defeatist, Billy merely flows through his disjointed life without much heed to the event at hand. Billy realizes that he holds the power to create his own happiness and satisfaction out of life through appreciation of the present moment rather than contemplate the occurrence of past and future. Vonnegut develops Billy Pilgrim as a unique protagonist as a means of forcing the reader to question the application of free will upon society and gain a new perspective on the beauty of the present.
By comparing the aftermath of Dresden bombing to a mission on the moon, Vonnegut showcases the difficulty to survive post the destruction of the city. Similar to an expedition crossing the moon, people had to be conscious about every action of their during war time not knowing which action of theirs would result in massive
The gruesome nature of the attack festered within Vonnegut’s mind. His experience in the war and in Dresden are detailed in Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of the novel, mirrors Vonnegut. Both Billy and Vonnegut were captured in the Battle of the Bulge and transported to Dresden, both witnessing its destruction. The similarities between the two allow Vonnegut to accurately describe settings and events based off of his own experiences. Vonnegut describes the destruction of Dresden, comparing the surface to that of the moon:
So long as mankind inhabits the Earth will there be war, death, and destruction. Since the beginning of time, there have been opposites. Even before man had the ability to rationalize theories were there unalike aspects of life. Every quality depends on the existence of its own opposite, or it would not at all exist. Therefore it goes without saying that suffering and death (two entities closely associated with war) are inevitable. These attributes, both negative in nature, are inescapable ills of this world. “What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.” Kurt Vonnegut’s account of the destructiveness of warfare desensitizes and dehumanizes Billy Pilgrim in his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and in a greater sense, humanity as a whole. In short, Slaughterhouse-Five follows a man through his ability to cope with life before,
War is the third topic that is heavily satirized in Slaughterhouse Five. First, Billy almost gets killed because he is time-traveling. Second of all, Vonnegut always says “so it goes” (12) whenever someone dies, so it sort of mocks death. Also, he is given a woman’s jacket when he becomes a POW and it mocks his position in the war also. On the nights of February 13-14 in 1944 the city of Dresden, Germany was subjected to one of the worst air attacks in the history of man. By the end of the bombing 135,000 to 250,000 people had been killed by the combined forces of the United States and the United Kingdom. Dresden was different then Berlin or many of the other military targets which were attacked during World War II because it was never fortified or used for strategic purposes and, therefore, was not considered a military target. At one point, Billy watches a war movie about WWII. He watches it regularly, showing how reality is.
In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a fictional character named Bill Pilgrim is used to depict the various themes about life and war. Vonnegut went through some harsh times in Dresden, which ultimately led to him writing about the tragedies and emotional effects that come with war. By experiencing the war first handed, Vonnegut is able to make a connection and relate to the traumatic events that the soldiers go through. Through the use of Billy Pilgrim and the other characters, Vonnegut is able show the horrific affects the war can have on these men, not only during the war but after as well. From the very beginning Vonnegut portrays a strong sense of anti-war feelings, which he makes most apparent through Billy Pilgrim.