Billy Pilgrim Figures it Out

Chapter 2 of Slaughterhouse Five is a man’s justification for the worlds cruel and curious ways. The complexities of life and time are the big questions looming over humans for the entirety of their existence, and Billy’s experience seems to be a way to explain that. “he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time.” (pg. 35) This quote is resonated throughout the chapter, as Billy blinks and is transported to different moments in time. The explanation that time is as linear and visible as the Rocky Mountains is one for people to take comfort in. The idea that we don’t die permanently, because we are alive and well in every moment of our past, is one for people to take comfort in. Vonnegut tackles one of life’s biggest complexities in such a unique way. Throughout the book as a whole, there is a phrase repeated, “so it goes,” This prompts me to take everything written with a grain a salt. This prompts the idea that everything we learn from someone else was just told to them by someone else whom was told the information by someone before them, and so on. This little phrase, “so it goes,” sets this untrustworthy tone. Should we believe everything that we are told to? Who knows! Apparently Billy found the answers on the planet Tralfamador! We are made to think that this is obviously not a true story, and Billy was in fact severely injured in the plane crash, but at a superficial level, the truth behind Tralfamador could be comforting. And if we were to take this crazy story at the same level of reason that we do the more believable recounts of war, maybe we as readers would be able to believe in it just enough to find some comfort in it just like Billy does. This could be a reason for the, “so it goes,” repetition, to make the reader feel slightly unsure what to believe to the point that everything seems believable.