Cat’s Cradle ISU
Here’s my Essay!!!
In his novel, Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut satirizes many of the important things that we as humans strive for, believe in, etc., ultimately showing us the meaninglessness and sometimes danger of human pursuit. He skillfully manages to critique our society, uncovering many of its flaws, as well as denouncing some of the pillars which it is built upon. Beginning with “Nothing in this book is true”, Cat’s Cradle embarks you on a journey that is filled with exposition, irony, and ridicule of things that some of us hold on to so dearly! (Vonnegut)
Two incredibly important and related aspects of our society are science and military/technological advancement. Science is regarded very highly to answer many of the mysteries of the universe, as well as used for the development of different military weapons/tools. In this novel, Vonnegut explores the concept of science as a form of discovering different truths, being certain to include the fact that these truths sometimes bring us more harm than good. The book strongly exposes how technological advancements could ultimately lead to the complete annihilation of the human race. Take for example one of the main “topics” of the book. In the first page, the main character, Jonah, tells us
When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book called The Day the World Ended. The book was to be factual. The book was to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. (Vonnegut, 1)
Although Jonah never mentions whether or not he agrees with what happened on that day, the very nature of the title of his book – The Day the World Ended – exposes the atrocious and destructive nature in not only creating, but actually dropping an atomic bomb on other human beings. Although it may be seen as a great advancement in the real world as well as in the book, the title of Jonah’s project reveals its true nature.
An interesting way in which Vonnegut chooses to satirize science and technological advancement is by exploring the ideas, life, personality, etc., of one of the main contributors to, or the father of, the atomic bomb. In Cat’s Cradle, this man is the fictionalized character named Felix Hoenikker (he is deceased in the novel). In fact, Dr. Breed, a man who worked with Dr. Hoenikker, told his secretary that “…the main thing with Dr. Hoenikker was truth”. (Vonnegut, 54) He also said to Jonah: ““New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become””. (Vonnegut, 41) When Jonah was allowed to visit Dr. Hoenikker’s laboratory, these were his observations:
The old man left the laboratory a mess. What engaged my attention at once was the quantity of cheap toys lying around. There was a paper kite with a broken spine. There was a toy gyroscope, wound with string, ready to whirr and balance itself. There was a top. There was a bubble pipe. There was a fish bowl with a castle and two turtles in it. (Vonnegut, 56)
Jonah was then informed that Dr. Hoenikker ““…loved ten-cent stores””. (Vonnegut, 56) The irony in this is incredible. We discover that the father of the atomic bomb, one who helped create a weapon which unleashed disaster upon thousands of people and which has the capability of destroying the world, loved playing with 10 cent toys! This in itself reveals the banality of the search for truth through science and technological advancement, not forgetting that truth was this man’s “main thing”.
Felix Hoenikker, the man whose ““…most famous experiments were performed with equipment that cost less than a dollar””, did in fact create the substance which brought upon the end of the world. (Vonnegut, 56) During his visit with Dr. Breed, Jonah discovers how the suggestion for this substance came about. He asked Breed: ““Did anybody ever try to suggest projects to Dr. Hoenikker?””, and Breed replied with
Certainly. Admirals and generals in particular. They looked upon him as a sort of magician who could make America invincible with a wave of his wand […] I remember, shortly before Felix died, there was a Marine general who was hounding him to do something about mud. […] The marines, after almost two-hundred years of wallowing in mud, were sick of it […] The general, as their spokesmen, felt that one of the aspects of progress should be that Marines no longer had to fight in the mud”. [Ellipses mine] (Vonnegut, 42-43)
Jonah was imagining a large amount ““…of some sort of chemical, or tons of some sort of machinery…””, but Dr. Breed informed him that ““What the general had in mind was a little pill or a little machine””. (Vonnegut, 43) When Jonah asked Breed what Hoenikker had said, Breed replied ““In his playful way, and all his ways were playful, Felix suggested that there might be a single grain of something-even a microscopic grain-that could make infinite expanses of muck, marsh, swamp, creeks, pools, quicksand, and mire as solid as this desk””. (Vonnegut, 43) Of course, they both thought it was impossible, but Dr. Breed told Jonah how, to Felix, ““it was entirely possible””, and how Felix had taken the time to explain its possibility to him. Dr. Breed did the same for Jonah, and the name that was given to this substance was ice-nine. On the contrary to what Dr. Breed and Jonah believed, Felix Hoenikker had successfully managed to create a substance named ice-nine, which had the capability of freezing every single drop of water on earth. Felix had chosen to keep it a secret, probably due to its destructive nature. Jonah later finds out, through Hoenikker’s children, that when their father had died in his comfortable wicker chair at their cottage in Cape-Cod, he left them with his ice-nine.
Apparently, before he sat down in his wicker chair and died, the old man played puddly games in the kitchen with water and pots and pans and ice-nine. He must have been converting water to ice-nine and back to water again, for every pot and pan was out on the kitchen countertops. […] The old man meant to take only a brief time out in his chair, for he left quite a mess in the kitchen. Part of the disorder was a saucepan filled with solid ice-nine. [Ellipses mine] (Vonnegut, 247-248).
When one of the Hoenikker children went to check on their father, he discovered him stiff. If this wasn’t bad enough, his three children each separated the remnants of the ice-nine and each of their portions ended up in the wrong hands, one of which was those of a dictator who decided to take the substance on his deathbed, and whose body happened to fall into the sea due to a plane crash. This caused all of the water in the world to freeze, as well as people along with it, thus resulting in the end of the world. So much for “making America invincible”! Felix, and his “playful ways” only succeeded in bringing America to an end along with the rest of the planet. This shows us exactly how dangerous technological advancements can be, as well as how Felix’s life came to a “stiffening” (yet not icy) end, as well as the world due to his invention, rendering his scientific discovery as meaningless, and destructive.
Religion is something which many take incredibly seriously. We use it, in many ways, to justify our existence. This novel shows us how thousands of people can live happily following a religion which is based on lies, a religion called Bokononism. What makes this religion a satire is that contrary to real life, its followers are more than aware that their religion is based on lies, but happily follow it regardless. Bokononism simply provides people with the illusion of having a purpose in life. The book explores the concept that religion is simply used as a false explanation for why we are here, and what our purpose is. Vonnegut mocks and attacks almost every aspect of religion that many of us strongly believe in, ultimately declaring it as a meaningless sham-although useful for certain purposes. Bokonon describes our search for understanding perfectly in one of his “calypsos” (poems):“Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?” Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand”. (Vonnegut, 182) This obviously indicates that we use things like religion to convince ourselves that we understand life’s meaning/purpose, comparing us to animals who don’t bother searching for these kind of answers and simply live instead.
Let us look at how Bokononism was created. Two men landed naked on the shore of the island of San Lorenzo, and placed themselves in charge of trying to create a utopia. One of them took care of government, and the other, Bokonon, “designed a new religion”. (Vonnegut, 127) In regards to this new religion, Bokonon wrote: “I wanted all things To seem to make some sense, So we all could be happy, yes, Instead of tense. And I made up lies So that they all fit nice, And I made this sad world A par-a-dise”. (Vonnegut, 127) This “calypso” shows us how this religion, followed by so many, was created by some random man who landed on the island, satirizing the fact that it doesn’t take much to invent a religion and get thousands of people to follow it, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. This is obviously a mockery as well of humans “needing” to be part of something that might provide them with answers.
Vonnegut not only mocks the creation of religion, but its scriptures and practices as well. The first sentence in The Books of Bokonon (which would be like our bibles) is the following: “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies””. (Vonnegut, 5) The Books of Bokonon are filled with ridiculous “calypsos” and statements which provide the people of San Lorenzo with some sort of guideline as to how to follow Bokononism, have hope, live a good life,-all the religious works. One of the common “rituals” of a Bokononist is called boko-maru. Jonah’s observations, accidentally walking in on two people performing the act, are as follows: “They had their shoes off. They had their eyes closed. They were facing each other. They were pressing the soles of their bare feet together. Each grasped his own ankles, giving himself the rigidity of a triangle”. (Vonnegut, 157) The Books of Bokonon contains an explanation of “the basis for this foot ceremony”: “We will touch our feet, yes, Yes, for all we’re worth, And we will love each other, yes, Yes, like we love our Mother Earth”. (Vonnegut, 158) Through these examples, it is evident to see that religious scriptures are satirized as books of silly poems and statements, and religious practices are satirized as foot touching. This simply points out how meaningless many of these symbols and acts can be, but how we still choose to believe in them and practice them anyways, in hopes that they will lead us to a better life.
Another aspect of religion that Vonnegut satirizes is some people’s willingness to completely devote or submit themselves to their religious leaders, even if it means harming themselves. A few days after ice-nine freezes all of the water in the world, Jonah (being a survivor) and his wife Mona go out of hiding to find other survivors. Instead, they find a pile of stiff, dead bodies, all of them seeming to have their hands to their mouths. In the centre of them all, they found the following note:
To whom it may concern: These people around you are almost all of the survivors on San Lorenzo of the winds that followed the freezing of the sea. These people made a captive of the spurious holy man named Bokonon. They brought him here, placed him at their center, and commanded him to tell them exactly what God Almighty was up to and what they should now do. The mountebank told them that god was surely trying to kill them, possibly because He was through with them, and that they should have the good manners to die. This, as you can see, they did. (Vonnegut, 273)
The note was signed Bokonon. The people of San Lorenzo killed themselves with ice-nine, simply because Bokonon suggested it to them. This satirizes the fact that religion sometimes causes people not to live or think for themselves, and simply to follow along with what someone else says, without even judging it on their own. Mona then told Jonah that Bokonon ““always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless””, right before joining the others in death. (Vonnegut, 273) This once again shows us the absurdity of religion, and the meaninglessness of human pursuit. What did religion do for the people of San Lorenzo in the end? Cause them to commit suicide.
As individual people, we all spend a lot of time in our lives trying to fulfill individual desires, pursuing our dreams, finding happiness, etc. The same is true for many of the characters in Cat’s Cradle. All of Felix Hoenikker’s children fulfilled their desires, but the irony in this is that their desires come true turned out to be the opposite of happiness come true. This satirizes every aspect of our human quests for love, belonging, and many other things as well. Let us look at Newt, the baby of the family. Being a midget, it was quite difficult for him to find love, which seems to be something which he was in desperate need of. This is made clear when he describes some of his time with Zinka (another midget) to Jonah saying: ““Imagine a woman dancing just for me””, as though this was one of the most wonderful things he could have ever hoped for. (Vonnegut, 128) This is why it was easy for Zinka (who was really a Russian spy) to fool Newt into thinking she was in love with him (and half her actual age), in order to steal a piece of his ice-nine. As Jonah discovers in the newspapers, “Zinka was not, as she claimed, only twenty-three years old. She was forty-two – old enough to be Newt’s mother”. (Vonnegut, 20) Newt’s search for love ended incredibly badly, having his heart torn by his ““little Zinka, that winsome troll of Ukrainian ballet””, as Jonah describes her, who was really only with him to steal his ice-nine for Soviet Russia. (Vonnegut, 244)
Next we have Angela, the eldest of the three Hoenikker children. Because Mrs. Hoenikker passed away at a young age, Angela was left to be the mother for her brother’s, and the wife for her father. After her father’s death, Frank no longer lived with her (she was alone with Newt) and she was desperate for companionship, having spent all of her life taking care of her family. This is why she was so easily fooled when Harrison C. Conners, the strikingly handsome president of Fabri-Tek, came knocking at her door. She describes it as follows: ““there was a knock on the door-and there stood Harrison Conners. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He came in, and we talked about Father’s last days and about old times in general […] Two weeks later, we were married””.[Ellipses mine] (Vonnegut, 117) Sounds like a fairytale come true, right? You must first understand that when Jonah first sees Angela, he describes her as “a horse-faced woman with platinum blonde hair”. (Vonnegut, 101) Although Angela acts like she is happily married, Newt describes it differently: ““She’s had a tough time. She needs a rest […] Her husband is mean as hell to her […] He hardly ever comes home-and when he does, he’s drunk and generally covered with lipstick””. [Ellipses mine] (Vonnegut, 179) As it turns out, Harrison was just using her for her piece of ice-nine. Once again, we are shown how Angela’s desires were fulfilled, but they turned out to be far from the fairytale she wished they would be.
Last but not least, we have Frank Hoenikker, the middle child. Frank also ended up on the shores of San Lorenzo, but unlike Bokonon, he was put in jail due to his lack of having a passport. When the dictator of the country, named “Papa” Monzano, came to visit him in jail inquiring on whether or not he “was the blood relative of the immortal Dr. Felix Hoenikker” Frank “admitted” he was. (Vonnegut, 83) In an essay, Frank wrote: ““Since that moment, every door to opportunity in San Lorenzo has been opened wide to me””. (Vonnegut, 83) Frank’s title was “Major General Franklin Hoenikker, Minister of Science and Progress in the Republic of San Lorenzo”, and he was also “the architect of the “San Lorenzo Master Plan””. (Vonnegut, 80-81) So Frank wanted some power and authority, and he received what he hoped for, only for a terrible price. Firstly, he was going to have to marry a woman he did not love, and secondly, he ended the world. The reason why “Papa” Monzano gave him such a “fancy job” was because Frank gave him his piece of ice-nine. As mentioned above, ““Papa” Monzano was the first man in history to die of ice-nine”. (Vonnegut, 237) When a plane crashed into his house, tearing it open, the following events happened (as described by Jonah):
And somewhere in that room below, out of sight, something mightily reluctant to move was beginning to move. Down the chute it crept.[…] It was the boat in which “Papa” lay. It reached the end of the chute. Its bow nodded. Down it tipped. Down it fell, end over end. “Papa” was thrown clear, and he fell separately. I closed my eyes. There was a sound like that of the gentle closing of a portal as big as the sky, the great door of heaven being closed softly. It was a grand AH-WHOOM. I opened my eyes-and all the sea was ice-nine .[Ellipses mine] (Vonnegut, 261)
That was the day the world ended. All of this is to show that Frank’s want for a good job led him to putting a substance that could end the world into the wrong hands, “Papa’s” hands. His pursuit for “happiness”, as well as those of his brother and sister, all turned out to have absolutely tragic endings, making them ultimately meaningless and harmful.
There is no doubt that Kurt Vonnegut masters satirizing pillars of our society by revealing the destructive nature of science and technological advancement, by mocking religion and it’s different traditions, and by showing us the ironic, if not disappointing results of personal human pursuit. He clearly paints up the fact that human pursuit can be dangerous, and many times meaningless in the end. Perhaps we should begin looking at an alternative way of living, one which consists of simply living, without always trying to fulfill certain needs or discover things which are better left undiscovered. Perhaps this is the only way that we will be capable of saving ourselves and the planet that we live on. The end of the world is not such an exaggerated hypothesis for our near future. I believe that Bokonon describes the meaninglessness of our lives perfectly in his final sentence for the Books of Bokonon:
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who. (Vonnegut, 287)
