I think maybe that Billy (and the narrator) is using 'So it goes' as a form of isloation. ( one of Freud's defense mechanisms..) When Billy says 'so it goes' every time a person dies, he makes death seem like it's not a big deal. He tries to take the emotion out of death by pretending that it is just a moment in time where the dead person is in a "bad condition." After Billy's plane crash, he starts going 'senile'..or whatever... i think that the whole fabrication of Tralfadore is just a way that Billy unconsciously deals with death and war. Being able to look at death, shrug and say "so it goes" is just a defense that keeps appearing over and over again throughout the book.
3 comments:
How do you know if he isn't crazy and everyone else is cooko? huh?
he is crazy. but its also a defense mechanism. gr john grr.
i didn't really think that it was a defense for Billy because death is something that happens to everyone and he is realizing that because of the aliens. also during the war he wanted to die and so it goes is just like he is bored with life, so death doesn't seem that bad to him maybe.
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