Slaughterhouse-Five Chapter 5 Post 1 of 2

    Slaughterhouse-Five presents an ongoing and very important motif throughout the novel but which going  mainly in chapter five. A motif is a recurring phrase or idea used throughout a work, unifying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to a theme. In Slaughterhouse, the motif present is "so it goes." Learned from the Tralfamadorians, Pilgrim then incorporates this into his own thinking. The motif is exemplified in this excerpt, "Before they got their names and numbers in that book, they were missing in action and probably dead. So it goes," (Vonnegut, 91).
    The "so it goes" mentality really advocates that the deceased is only dead in that point in time because that is how it is structured. In other fragments of their life and in time, they are alive. The Tralfamadorians do not get sad about this because the understand this way of thinking. This motif really connects with the theme of free will. Saying "so it goes" is basically saying that that is how destiny goes and their is nothing one can do to break the mold or change it. This connection makes it a substantial motif in Slaughterhouse-Five.