Slaughterhouse Five - Manipulation of Time and Place Kurt Vonnegut's Manipulation of Time and Place adds a science fiction element to Slaughterhouse-Five. Structurally, the novel is anything but traditional. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, jumps from place to place and is in constant time distortion while on the planet Tralfamadore. Because Vonnegut uses the planet Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorian people to take Billy from one place to another and from one time frame to another, in the novel he consistently respects the phrase "So it goes," which describes the Tralfamadorians' vision of death. Vonnegut's manipulation of time and space is highly unusual. Billy, an optometrist from Ilium, New York, finds himself "stumbling across time" with the people of Tralfamadore. For Tralfamadorians, time does not exist. Billy can remain on Tralfamadore for years, despite being absent from the earth for only a microsecond (26). Billy's "time travel" also allows Vonnegut to unite the book's three main settings and experiences: the horrors of war and Dresden, Billy's normal life in Illim, and his time in Tralfamadore. Billy has no control over his being in a time. warp. In the middle of his life in New York he suddenly finds himself in Tralfamadore; he became “unstuck in time” (22). The Tralfamadorians eventually show Billy important moments in his life, but they don't always show them in sequence. They do this so that Billy can fully understand the true reasons and importance of the events. Vonnegut also uses this time manipulation tactic. It tells and shows the events of Billy's life in a juxtaposed way that parallels "time travel". “Time travel” and being “unstuck in time” allow Vonnegut to present the events of the war in a sequence through which they would have the greatest impact on the reader. Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place in Slaughterhouse-Five allows him to use the phrase "So it goes" for special impact. The phrase appears after every death scene. It allows the transition from death to life and also allows Vonnegut to change the time or place of the action. According to one source, the phrase "So it goes" appears in the novel more than 100 times (Boomhower).