Irony, Dark Humor, and Satire in Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut uses a combination of dark humor and irony in Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result, the novel allows the reader to realize the horrors of war and at the same time laugh at some of the absurd situations it can generate. Mainly, Vonnegut wants the reader to recognize the fact that one must accept things as they happen because no one can change the inevitable. While Slaughterhouse-Five may not be full of delightful satire and comedic scenes, there are accounts that force the reader to laugh. In one case, an extremely drunk Billy Pilgrim is desperately searching for the steering wheel of his car: "He was in the backseat of his car, which is why he couldn't find the steering wheel," Vonnegut writes (47). In another episode, Billy "unfreezes" himself in time while watching television, so that he sees a war film in reverse and then forward. The funniest sequence takes place when Billy travels from Tralfamadore Zoo to his wedding night with his wife Valencia. He wakes up and finds himself in the German prison camp. He then finds himself with Valencia after returning from the bathroom. He goes to sleep, then wakes up on a train headed to his father's funeral. In any case, the reader encounters a lot of dark humor in the novel. There is a bitter sense of humor in the Tralfamadorian phrase "So it goes", which is repeated more than 100 times in the novel. John May says that Vonnegut's purpose in repeating the phrase after each death statement is to build its meaning with each incremental refrain (Contemporary Literary Criticism 8: 530). At first the saying may be considered funny in an ironic way. However, as you read further, the sentence becomes irritating and irreverent. The reader cannot imagine so many deaths meaning so little. According to Wayne McGinnis, it is most likely Vonnegut's intent to arouse such feelings in the reader (Contemporary Literary Criticism 5: 468). This punctuation phrase forces the reader to look at the novel's deaths one after another. Ultimately, repetition creates a feeling of resentment that too many people are being killed. The saying is a sad reminder that it means exactly the opposite of what its words say. Vonnegut ends the novel by remembering the deaths of JFK, Martin Luther King and all those who died in Vietnam.