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I probably shouldn’t be admitting this- but I actually have yet to finish Slaughterhouse-Five. I still have the last chapter left, but so far, I have counted exactly 77 instances of “so it goes.” I found the continued usage of this phrase really interesting because it just kept coming back – sometimes every paragraph on a page ended in “so it goes.” When I started looking for a theme which tied all the instances together, the only thing I noticed was that it was usually at the end of passages, and much less often in the middle of passages. As I was looking around at articles for my panel presentation though, I read something which I had never thought about, but which is super obvious now – the “so it goes” always comes after the death of someone or something.
              I think that the effect of the “so it goes” relates to the entire book as a whole in the irony and the understatement that comes along with it. Every time someone dies, Vonnegut interjects to say – yeah, maybe this happened, but it also might not have, who even knows? He constantly undermines the impact of the deaths in the story, making them seem like they could just be stories or rumors. This aligns with how he uses irony and understatement throughout the book. The entire premise of the book is that Vonnegut is telling this story about the war, but we don’t really ever know how much of what he’s saying is true, and how much is just that – a story. I think this relates to something Ema and I mentioned in our panel presentation yesterday regarding the incongruence between the gravity of the subject matter, and the ironic, almost nonchalant language and method of story-telling. Slaughterhouse-Five is a book about war, trauma, and death, but the way that Vonnegut chooses to tell it is through aliens and time travel, using piles of irony and sarcasm.
              I liked this method partly because it’s just the kind of humor that I find the most entertaining, but also because it makes you think. With the “So it goes,” specifically – for me at least, I always found myself wondering is that true?  Did this really happen? Could something like this really happen? It made me think more critically about the deaths that were being narrated to be, and consequently about all of the deaths that the war brought. Overall, I found Vonnegut's continued use of understatement, specifically "so it goes," really interesting and I not only enjoyed the book in part because of it, but I also think it forced me to think more critically about the message Vonnegut was trying to send.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 17, 2018 at 11:34 AM

    I think part of the reason "so it goes" is so prevalent is because, like you mention, it forces you to think more about what death really means. We instinctively have a sharp reaction to hearing such a flippant response to death -- we want to refute the narration, because we understand that death really matters, and that there's a difference between a massacre, as Vonnegut describes the bombing of Dresden in the first chapter, and the "death" of a bottle of champagne. By erasing that difference, Vonnegut forces us to think about why we find the phrase "so it goes" so striking.

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  2. captainumaricaMarch 17, 2018 at 12:05 PM

    I definitely agree that "So it goes" is meant to ironically portray the significance of death and I love the way Vonnegut does it. I also think the repetition of "So it goes" itself is meant to drive home a message. I think the general reaction of anyone reading "so it goes" 77+ times is exasperation. Seeing this message, even if it's funny or jarring the first time, becomes almost exhausting by the end. And I think that's how Vonnegut wants us to react. He wants us to see just how exhausting, just how frequent death is, and, more morbidly, how quickly one can become accustomed to it.

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  3. UnknownMarch 18, 2018 at 8:16 AM

    I think that "so it goes" is a really interesting take on death. I think its even more interesting when Vonnegut uses the phrase when not aligned with human death - I forget the exact instances, but sometimes if an inanimate object is lost or destroyed, he will use the phrase. I think its interesting that he views both human and non-human death on the same level - So it goes.

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  4. UnknownMarch 26, 2018 at 8:38 AM

    Splendid post! When I was reading Slaughterhouse Five, the "so it goes" phrase really stuck out to me and your thoughts about it helped me contextualize it's significance. Vonnegut's use of irony and humor to push the point he's trying to make about death was really engaging and thought provoking to me.

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  5. CatalinMarch 31, 2018 at 12:58 PM

    I agree that the repetition of "so it goes" undermines the different deaths in the novel. I also think it connects back to Billy's PTSD from the war. The "so it goes" connects with the idea of the brutality of war and the fact that a single life doesn't mean that much to the leaders of the war when they just happen to die in combat or because of conditions. I think Billy's saying of "so it goes" is also meant to show how disconnected he is from what actually happened in the war, because all around him people just seemed to die.

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