His mother does not like him to go to town by himself but that’s where all the roads lead. And so.
I saw this from The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. I looked up the dictionary for "and so" but still can't figure out what does it mean when it is used independently. I mean when it is not in a sentence.
In most cases the "And so" would be followed by ellipses to indicate that something happened after that first sentence. The first sentence states his mother's restriction and the reward of violating that restriction. The author relies on the reader's instincts about human nature: the son will go. By not using conventional ellipses, the author says the son's actions are certain. Of course the author knows the construction is violating grammar and punctuation rules, but this is a compact and powerful way to make his point about the event.
Proposition or conjunction
And so our intrepid explorer went to the....
...and so, as time went on the
Modifier that implies that the sentence following it, is the natural consequence of the sentence of which precedes it.
Cause and effect.
