Slaughterhouse Five Tone

"There were hundreds of corpse mines operating by and by. They didn't smell bad at first, were wax museums. But then the bodies rotted and liquefied, and the stink was like roses and mustard gas. So it goes." pg. 214 Vonnegut

The tone of this book is very understated and almost sarcastic. Vonnegut always downplays the significant and horrific deaths of people in the book. He does this through the use of phrases like "so it goes". He also moves on quickly after bringing something up. It kind of seems like he doesn't even care or he's bored. However, there is an undertone of sympathy that shows up in the book. For instance Vonnegut calls a character "Poor Old Edgar Derby" and references the soldiers' shriveled stomachs. Though these tones may seem conflicting they actually compliment the meaning of the book. The book is trying to force people to see how awful war is, but it also wants people to understand how so many people think of war nonchalantly and how wrong that is. His regular tone throughout the book represents how most people glaze over the bad things in war. However the more sympathetic parts of the book highlight how he truly feels war should be looked at. My using these two varying themes he instills a sense of sympathy and guilt in people who condone war.