Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
“So It Goes”
The phrase “So it goes” follows every mention of death
in the novel, equalizing all of them, whether they are natural,
accidental, or intentional, and whether they occur on a massive
scale or on a very personal one. The phrase reflects a kind of comfort
in the Tralfamadorian idea that although a person may be dead in
a particular moment, he or she is alive in all the other moments
of his or her life, which coexist and can be visited over and over
through time travel. At the same time, though, the repetition of
the phrase keeps a tally of the cumulative force of death throughout
the novel, thus pointing out the tragic inevitability of death.
The Presence of the Narrator as a Character
Vonnegut frames his novel with chapters in which he speaks
in his own voice about his experience of war. This decision indicates
that the fiction has an intimate connection with Vonnegut’s life
and convictions. Once that connection is established, however, Vonnegut backs
off and lets the story of Billy Pilgrim take over. Throughout the
book, Vonnegut briefly inserts himself as a character in the action:
in the latrine at the POW camp, in the corpse
mines of Dresden, on the phone when he mistakenly dials Billy’s
number. These appearances anchor Billy’s life to a larger reality
and highlight his struggle to fit into the human world.
