The Portrayal of Death

Step one in writing an anti-war novel is to remove any aspect of glory that one can associate with war. One of the most glorious things a soldier can do is die for the cause, so naturally, Kurt Vonnegut had to write Slaughterhouse-Five without any inkling that death was for a cause.

He does this in several ways, the first of which is by removing all cause from the war. There are only three characters in the whole book who appear to have any sense of what the war is about, and only two of them were shown in the war. Campbell, who is the least objectionable Nazi I've ever imagined could be in a book, and poor old Edgar Derby are the two men fighting for a cause. Both of them, however, are overshadowed completely by the senseless bombing that came right after their speeches, leaving the reader with the feeling of, "[So it goes, but] What was all that about?". Vonnegut further makes Derby's patriotism seem pointless by emphasizing at every possible opportunity that he will be shot for stealing a teapot in the ruins of Dresden [so it goes].

The second way Vonnegut removes the glory of death is in the line, "So it goes". This, of course, relates to the Tralfamadorian view of time that nothing can be changed; things that happen have happened and will always happen. This idea takes the glory not only out of death, but out of just about everything. There are no causes one can work towards, as the future is just as unchangeable as the past, and there is no death, because there are still plenty of moments the dead were alive. However, this is not the only way the repeated line removes glory from death. Vonnegut repeats it endlessly, throws it at everything regardless of the tragedy involved, even applying it to the death of bubbles in water [so it goes]. What this does is immunizes the reader to death, making sure we know every time there is one, and ensuring that we get not only used to it, but irritated with it, jovially thinking when we read about something that relates slightly to death, "oh boy, here it comes", and sure enough, there is meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. So it goes. The result is that we realize how common death really is and how little we are affected by it, just as Vonnegut appears to be under-sensitized to the deaths of over 100,000 people in Dresden. So it goes. In the light of this, one soldier laying down his life for his country seems rather insignificant. So it goes, and goes, and goes...

Finally, death is just violet light and humming, according to Billy Pilgrim. Sounds peaceful, and rather inglorious, doesn't it? So that goes too. If this idea were widely accepted, I'm sure tissue companies would go bankrupt and expire, as crying at funerals would be greatly reduced. So it goes. They might also cut down on the whole 21 gun salute thing for dead soldiers; it might disturb the humming, or even turn the light green or some other ghastly shade.