The first time I read “so it goes” in Slaughterhouse-Five I was very confused because I was like, what goes?? I then noticed that’s Vonnegut’s way of basically moving on and not bringing any further attention to the thing that “left.” After I realized it was the catchphrase of the book, I noticed it more whenever it’d pop up and would read a few sentences back to clarify what died. It was really eye opening because some of the times it wasn’t even a person who was passing, but an object that was destroyed. I never thought of objects as having living attributes, because they don’t really, but Vonnegut still treated them like they had real life and emotion by using his infamous “so it goes” phrase. It gave attention to the fact that this object will never be the same as it was before, and the “so it goes” part shows the turning point of it being unchangeable back to its initial form.
One example of this happening is on page 129, when Vonnegut is describing Billy’s bedside while he is in the veterans hospital, and says, “two pills, an ashtray with three lipstick-stained cigarettes in it, one cigarette still burning, and a glass of water. The water was dead. So it goes.” This sentence in specific was shocking to me because I’d never heard or thought about describing water as “dead.” Sure, I understand that old water doesn’t taste great, so many people throw it out and get some new water. Using “so it goes” to describe the state of the water was a different perspective I’ve never seen. If there was anything from the things that were listed that I think would make sense to describe as “dead” it would be the cigarettes. This is because you can’t use them anymore and they lost their value, they are unreusable. However, I think the water itself is drinkable, it may not taste great, but it’s still functional and does it’s job, which is to hydrate.
When Billy talked about the “silliness or murder” shows airing on the TV on page 255, I imagined someone curled up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and burrito-wrapped in a blanket. But once I read the “so it goes” sentence directly afterwards, it hit me that the shows are talking about death. This just shows how much the three-worded sentence snaps me into reality and gives me a different perspective to look at. Another place Vonnegut does this is on page 143 when Billy’s describing the Earth exhibit in the Tralfamadorian zoo. Billy says, “There was a stereophonic phonograph. The phonograph worked. The television didn’t. There was a picture of one cowboy killing another one pasted to the television tube. So it goes.” I initially just imagined a picture, similar to how people have family photos placed on their mantels nowadays. The “so it goes” in this sentence shifted my view, instead of focusing on the layout of the exhibit and how/where things were placed, I now focused on the cowboys, and the fact that there was such a disturbing photo on display.
I agree that Vonnegut overuses the phrase "So it goes" to highlight Billy's indifference. Some of the scenarios he uses it for are kind of strange, like the "water" example you gave. I think the Tralfamadorian perspective is both helpful and detrimental to Billy. He can ignore the moderately dull parts of life, but he also ignores significant traumas and does not resolve those issues. The sheer apathy towards death was also very jarring to me. This happens throughout the novel, but Vonnegut seems to oppose Billy in this way.
ReplyDeleteAt first, "so it goes" shocked me because it was so dismissive and indifferent towards one of the things we humans consider most traumatizing and important: death. It was a little funny, because the first instance was on page 2, where Billy says his cab driver's mother was incinerated in the firestorm at Dresden. Saying "so it goes" there wasn't as offensive as another place, because the cab driver was an insignificant character. But the more the book went on, the weirder (and yet more familiar) "so it goes" became. It's very apathetic and feels like someone who's been changed by the death they've seen in war -- which makes sense. It subtly places a reminder throughout the book of why Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel.
ReplyDeleteI would also add that putting "so it goes" after any death emphasizes a death that may have missed or accidentally skipped over because Vonnegut was so brief and dismissive with the death. Having that marker there to remind you every time there is a death puts into highlights two things: First, how often there are deaths in the novel, even of minor characters who's passing mention might only be that they had died. Second, the fact that "so it goes" is more noticeable than the death itself, almost normalizes and trivializes death in the novel.
ReplyDeleteI was also a bit confused when I first came across the phrase "so it goes." As it came up repeatedly throughout the book, I started to gain a sense of what it signified. It's interesting how you bring up the essence of finality in the phrase "so it goes." It's pretty clear that this phrase appears every time something dies or something horrible happens, but I never thought about how it could also signify that whatever it was that had been lost cannot be brought back again.
ReplyDeletei wonder if vonnegut using so it goes to distinguish the death of even an object somehow devalues the death of people as a whole. If a character dying can be equated to a stale glass of water, it seems like human life has very little value. On the flip side, "so it goes" could be thought of as a way to highlight the importance of death and its impact. The entire "brush it off" concept was really weird for me to think about overall.
ReplyDelete"So it goes" was confusing at times. I just assumed it always went along with anything referencing death, whether it be the word death or someone losing a life or whatever, i kinda just rolled with whatever vonnegut threw out. But you're right, it is confusing in retrospect--exactly what does "so it goes" represent? Perhaps the water belonged to someone who had since died and it was a remnant of their life.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting! I'd noticed the cowboy one and just assumed that it was Billy referring to violence in Earth's past, but I hadn't noticed the other examples. What they mean for our understanding of death, or for the understanding of death that Vonnegut wants to bring across, I have no idea, but it's very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe water one was also shocking to me. We talked in class about life and death being arbitrary but vonnegut using so it goes got me thinking about what constitutes life, or what is worthy of a "so it goes"
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