Constantly throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut writes "so it goes." From the slaughter of the cows and sheep in the meat locker to the horrible deaths of a man squashed by a car to the optometrists in the plane and Valencia in her Cadillac, the ending phrase is always identical: "so it goes." I think that by saying it, Vonnegut attempts to make the deaths seem like just a small happening in the events of the world. Almost like a mother giving a bottle to her baby, he soothes and smooths over the deaths, as if the audience could somehow be comforted by the casual tone of "so it goes." I believe this soothing is similar to the way that modern society talks about casualties in present wars. If everyone truly understood how henious war is and always will be, I don't think it would still occur.
The phrase also ties in the Tramalfadorians' fourth-dimensional view of the universe. Someone died. "So it goes." It goes because it always has and always will happen and because the universe is supposedly "structured that way." Although the people died, they still exist in prior moments simply because they did. All the memories others have of them are still there, suspended in time as just like the course of our universe.
I also think that Vonnegut means to stress that all deaths are that of individuals, all of whom deserve recognition and dignity postmortem, but many of which are just shuffled through the funeral process into somewhere else besides life. He used "so it goes" after the death of one person, such as his father, but also after the deaths of the thousands at Dresden and hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the entire war. I realized that he was partly acknowledging respectfully each person's death and partly reminding humanity that people will die indefinitely and that everyone will have their time. I was struck by the quote:
"The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double to 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000. 'I suppose they will all want dignity,' I said. 'I suppose,' said O'Hare."
How blatantly, horribly, and completely true. Vonnegut amazes me with his outlook! However, the statement is correct: the more people who enter into the world, the more who will die without dignity and live without peace. Kurt Vonnegut, and his fictional character in the frame story, Billy Pilgrim, witnessed a shockingly horrendous massacre. War is said to harden the soul against death and gore, but I think that Vonnegut's soul was reformed as a result of Dresden. Unfortunately, anti-war sentiments like his are often times associated with flower-children hippies and that one radical party member who's always vying for President when elections come around. I have to say that before this book, I was also neutral to war. I know it is utterly wrong, but I am just a sixteen-year-old girl who doesn't have a say in the violent conflicts which predate the times of Jesus and still kill thousands today.
I think that Slaughterhouse-Five makes humanity think. Every time he wrote, "so it goes," I was shocked by about the casual mention of so many people's deaths. Living in a peaceful society in one of the most well-developed and wealthy countries, I am shielded from the brutality of death and of war. We tie yellow ribbons around our trees and send cards to the soldiers in Iraq at Christmas, but I don't know what war is. If so many young people like me don't understand it and the horrible, numerous deaths that have accompanied it, how can it continue? How can humans continue murdering each other over land and riches and power, saying that the people who die "could have been anybody," and don't matter because they aren't from their home country? Innumerable humans have lost their lives due to war. The wars might never cease, and they will never be wiped clean from the bloodied past of humanity. The only thing humans should not do is sit around in their Iraqi-fuel-powered cars and Afghan rugs while they watch it happen. "So it goes."
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