How Does Billy Pilgrim Lose Time In Slaughterhouse Five
I can’t say I know much but I’m certain of two things in life; time can’t be changed and death can’t be stopped. In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut the phrase ‘so it goes’ is used 106 times in the novel. In this book, Billy Pilgrim, the main character, believes he is unstuck in time. I believe Vonnegut used this sentiment as a way to cope with tragedy. He utilized it as a euphemism for death and acquired a new perspective on the matter. With that saying, Vonnegut corroborates the inevitably of death by reminding us that death catches up with everyone.
Initially, I think Kurt Vonnegut used this phrase so many times because it was a way of coping with the tragedy that surrounded his own life. In the novel, as a prisoner of war to the Germans, Billy was kept in an underground slaughterhouse that ironically saved his life in the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Succeeding the bombing, Billy was forced to confront the reality that a whole city was wiped, leaving nothing but destruction behind. Everyone was killed by the bombing; it wasn’t even safe for the survivors to
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They viewed life as a series of moments. I myself can appreciate that way of thinking. You can’t simply be remembered on how you died, you’ve had a whole life with happy moments, and sad moments, but moments nonetheless. All these moments and experiences define you, not just that one moment when you stop breathing and your heart stops beating. The Tralfamadorians lived by the philosophy that time is predestined and can’t be changed so evidently there is no free will, "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is (Vonnegut 86)." That’s why, whenever death is mentioned, you should just shrug and say ‘so it goes’ because nothing else can be
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