Chapter 10 term: symbol

The bird at the end of the novel utters a line that confused me at first glance.  "Poo-tee-weet?"  I did not know why an author would end an award winning novel with a gibberish question asked by an animal.  Then I realized that Vonnegut did not want us to understand the bird.  The novel's finishing line is actually great because of the fact that the reader cannot understand the bird.  The misunderstanding of the bird is a symbol of the misunderstanding of war.  The question that is asked by the bird cannot be answered because one does not know how to answer a question that he does not understand.  War and destruction in today's world are things that are incomprehensible to people.  Why would people destroy one another over disputes?  The question cannot be answered just as the question from the bird because people cannot understand the war and violence today.

Chapter 10: So it goes

One of the major themes of the novel seems to be the repetitive use of the phrase "So it goes".  The phrase is used after every single death in the story no matter how tragic or ironic it may be.  The phrase does not discriminate between races, sexes, or brutality of the death.  Because the phrase does not change, it is used to display the equalization of dignity among all deaths in the novel.  No death is different from any other when the phrase is used afterwards.  All people are equal after death, and the phrase "So it goes" is the symbol that brings them all together throughout the novel.