What's Vonnegut trying to get us to think about Billy and his perspective? In other words, how much should we agree with "so it goes"?
I don't know but here's what I think so it goes can mean. I think that it can be both a defense of war and a criticism of war. In a way it becomes paradoxical. On the one hand "So It Goes" justifies being passive about violence, because violence will happen. If things just are "so it goes" then we aren't responsible for fixing them. But at the same time, "so it goes" can also mean that we cannot justify war, because it's a very Tralfamadorian thought, and Tralfamadorians have no concept of cause and effect, things just are. So if war just is, it might mean that we can't do anything about it and therefore don't need to try. But also without cause and effect, there is no way to justify violence, there is no cause or reason for the violence. So it goes is both anti-war and pro-war/passive, weirdly.
Now let's think about Vonnegut. He says that his book fails as an anti-war novel. However, it is an attempt at an anti-war novel. And that would point to us thinking of "so it goes" as anti-war. However, it fails, because the main character seems to be very much in the passive stance to war kind of "so it goes" (not pro-war, just passive). And I think that that's what Vonnegut is doing, he wants us to see both sides, and respect aspects of both of them. For Vonnegut, I think that the passive side might be very comforting because it relieves him of some kind of "survivors guilt". However, he also probably wants his readers to be anti-war, and so he might be asking us to respect the passivity of him, but also to be active ourselves.
I don't know if Vonnegut is actually using "so it goes" as an out for his own guilt, and using the book to get us to understand him, and also be active. But I do think that the book is anti-war, and therefore Vonnegut is asking us to criticize passivity, the "I couldn't have done anything" mentality, and to be active. That's why Billy isn't heroic. He's not a hero, just a main character. Because we aren't supposed to agree with him. So overall I'd say that "so it goes" is not a mentality that he agrees with.
As you know I wrote my essay on this. I think that Vonnegut would be ecstatic if no war ever happened again on earth (or any other planet for that matter). I think he is struggling with how probable it is that you can actually stop war. In some way, the fact that Vonnegut, a veteran himself, is struggling with these internal contradictions ("so it goes" to help him deal with the guilt of war by characterizing it as unstoppable, and his opposition to the Vietnam war and his sons ever being in a way) is an argument against war - it causes pain in the hearts of its veterans. It causes them to try to justify horrible things that have happened. I like that you wrote that Billy isn't heroic because he doesn't stand up for anything, he's just a main character. Good stuff
ReplyDeleteOh that's a really smart way to think about it. I hadn't thought that Vonnegut's struggle might be a meta way of getting us to see a problem with war. It's a cool thought.
DeleteThis is super interesting, and I had never thought about 'so it goes' in the way that you, and Xanthe in her comment described it. I was always reading the 'so it goes' almost as, so [the story] goes - i.e. these people might have died, they might not have, but who knows. However, I think the idea of 'so it goes' as being, not necessarily a defense of war, but a passive reaction to it - it's just going to happen, there's not much we can do about - is honestly a much more interesting and complex analysis of the phrase.
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