Salt does the body good

In every novel you read, the author writes what he does for a purpose. This point cannot be understated for Kurt Vonnegut. Throughout his book, SlaughterHouse-5 he refers to something at or near the beginning of the novel and then makes reference to it later. For example, a common thing he says throughout the novel is “so it goes” to down play death and make light of it. One of the things he brings up in the beginning that could easily go unnoticed by readers is when he writes “This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.” A reader might think, what does a pillar of salt have to do with anything, but if they keep up with context clues a page before, and many pages after, they can figure it out. Vonnegut first references to this “pillar of salt” a paragraph before that quote. The novel is very spastic and at this point he is talking about a point and time in which he was reading a Gideon Bible when something popped out to him. Lot, a character in the Bible is stepping up and doing God’s will and is told not to look back. According to Vonnegut “And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes bad been, but she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes” After reading this quote, you realize that Lot was killed because she looked back, and that Vonnegut looks up to a person like her because she stood up for what she believed in and was human; she had the urge to look back and she did, thus he wrote this book about a “pillar of salt”. Later, about halfway through the novel, this “pillar of salt” is referenced again, although indirectly. At this point Billy Pilgrim, a fictional character Vonnegut has written about, has already been abducted by aliens and changed the way he thinks. He now accepts death and does not feel like he can change anything, and he accepts everything. He is put into a situation. Vonnegut writes, “He found two small sources, two lumps an inch apart and hidden in the lining. One was shaped like a pea. The other was shaped like a tiny horseshoe. Billy received a message carried out by the radiations. He was told not to find out what the lumps were. He was advised to be content with knowing they could work miracles for him, provided he did not insist on learning their nature. That was all right with Billy Pilgrim. He was grateful. He was glad.”. He brings this whole point up, because throughout his book he encourages readers they can make a difference and to never give up by showing the quirks of the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Billy encounters 2 lumps that will provide him miracles. Anyone else would be curious as to why they are, and they would most certainly look, but not Billy, he just lets them be and is happy. Vonnegut uses this example and the example of Lot earlier, and writes his entire novel around the idea of “a pillar of salt” to show readers that we should always stay human and continue to be curious about things, because that is a meaningful life, and the minute we stop being human, what is the point of our existence?