In our new book Slaughterhouse-Five, the sentence, "so it goes," gets repeated quite often. Vonnegut seems to repeat this line after every statement of a death. As I was wondering why was so important about death, I ran into my conclusion in Chapter 4.
When Weary dies, he tells the rest of the people that the person who killed him was "Billy Pilgrim."
This is the reason that I believe that he uses this phrase. With this phrase, he can kind of tell the story but not make the cause of the deaths a fact. Using this, he is trying to drive home that people dont always tell the truth. Also, the story might have been passed on and on and with that, people interpert things different.
Ending of Caucasia
15 years ago
3 comments:
I thought the line "so it goes" was more or less trying to connect Billy's abduction with the aliens and what he learned from them. My favorite line in the book so far is when he is telling what he learned from them and talks about how no one ever really dies. They live on in all the moments they were a part of. So when people die, so it goes, we all must die, it's just a matter of what you do after the fact. Do you cry and mourn even though there is nothing you can do about it? Or do you think about all of the wonderful memories you are left with when they are gone.
People die...so it goes.
Wow! Thank you! I really had no idea what it meant. I noticed that too, that it was after death or something to do with death, and I couldn't figure out why.
But what you said makes a lot of sense, about not telling the truth.
wow! this was a good explination, i really didnt think that far into it, so i guess i didnt understand it too well. Thanks!
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