Big+Ideas,+Essential+Questions-Wesley

Vonnegut's novel //Cat's Cradle// was published in 1963 during the height of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs Invasion were only a couple years in the past, and tensions among the entire human race were at historical highs. The Cold War itself was essentially a conflict of ideals. Communism, embodied by the USSR, wanted to spread itself by nature. Thus, Russia annexed as many countries as possible in order to govern their subjects with Communist ideals. However, the United States, being a democratic state, wanted to stop the expansion of Communism because despite the egalitarianism of its ideologies, Communism in practice subjected countless individuals to oppression, abuse, and poverty. By doing this, the United States believed it would grant the freedoms it values to the people it protected.

The driving force behind the Cold War, however, was the destructive potential it had. Although no shots were fired, both the United States and Russia were the push of a button away from annihilating each other with nuclear weapons, a technology not yet twenty years old when Vonnegut's novel was published. The prospect of a global nuclear war was a very real one, and while it left governments across the world quaking with indecision, it made Vonnegut ask one simple question. "Why?"

A cat's cradle is a timeless children's game in which one makes patterns using a loop of string and his fingers (the logo at the top of this wiki is an example of one). The point of the game is for the child to find the "cat's cradle" in the string pattern, while the adult is fully aware that there is no cat nor a cradle- it's just a piece of string. Vonnegut uses this "game" to define perhaps the largest theme in his book, the futility of the search for a nonexistent truth. His main instrument for conveying this message is the irony behind Bokonism, a religion that states all religion is based on lies. Even despite its central tenants and the fact that it is outlawed on the island of San Lorenzo (on which the vast majority of its followers live), every single person in San Lorenzo practices Bokonism. Learning this, the reader inevitably asks, "why?". San Lorenzo is a destitute island whose sole industry abuses its workers (for no pay) on which even then smallest offenses are responded to with capital punishment. As Bokonon, the founder of Bokonism, explains, San Lorenzians find purpose and meaning in their otherwise worthless lives with Bokonism. Following a prophet who is supposedly an enemy of the government gives them a sense that they are involved in an enduring struggle of good against evil, and that they are clandestinely carrying out God's will in ways they cannot understand.

This, Vonnegut says, is no different from what was happening in the real world during his life. When two soldiers face one another, why do they want so dearly to kill the other? For preservation of one's own life, obviously. But why is one afraid that he will get shot? Why is he holding a gun in his hand, living in a trench instead of being at home, going to school, and providing for his family? Vonnegut would argue that it is because of the relentless search for truth. Ultimately, each of these two soldiers' governments decided that they had adopted the "true" best form of government and that everyone should follow their philosophy because it is "right". The United States opposed Nazi Germany because it believed the persecution and execution of minorities was wrong, but Nazi Germany was willing to fight back because it believed it was justified in its actions. Vonnegut believed that in order for one to convince himself that he is absolutely correct about something, he must accept some sort of delusion (e.g. a child stealing cookies from the cookie jar must truly believe that he deserves all of the cookies more than anyone else). Consequently, it is not truth that causes war, violence, and death- it is delusion. Having fought in World War II himself, Vonnegut was a staunch pacifist and opposed conflict for exactly this reason.

A second theme, stemming from Vonnegut's challenge of truth, is the question of innocence in humanity (and especially in science). Vonnegut develops this theme in Felix Hoenikker, a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project, and his three children Newt, Frank, and Angela. Felix is lauded by his peers and enthusiasts alike as such a great scientist because he is not concerned with fame, money, or other material desires that scientists of his status so often succumb to. The average person viewed him as a down-to-earth, incredibly successful scientist who loves what he does. However, when the reader learns about the true nature of Felix, this description becomes incredibly ironic. Felix was actually an incredibly self-centered individual and uses the delusion of "pure research" to justify this. At home, he neglected his wife and only saw her as a caregiver, to the extent that he barely remembered her after she died. When this happened, he withdrew his daughter from school just so she could fill his wife's role, removing her from her friends and isolating her from society. His sole interest in life was to pursue and investigate whatever he saw interesting at that moment in his life, whether it was nuclear weapons or turtles. This childlike innocence and curiosity, however, is met with the grave societal implications of his discoveries. When testing his nuclear bomb, Felix felt no remorse about the potential consequences the weapon could have; when one of his coworkers stated "now he knows sin" after the detonation, Felix simply asked, "What is sin?" in response. This highlights Vonnegut's argument that science, even just research, is never innocent when it develops harmful technologies. He states that scientists must be aware of the potential dangers they are creating, or it could lead to disaster in society for which they would be responsible.

This theme continues with the circumstances surrounding ice-9. The fact that Felix would ever develop such a technology in the first place further proves Vonnegut's point, but what strengthens his argument is the way Newt, Frank, and Angela act when in possession of it. Instead of learning from their father's mistake of being lax with something that could cause the apocalypse, they follow in his footsteps. Frank uses ice-9 to gain power and fame in San Lorenzo, and both Angela and Newt effectively forfeit their pieces of it to the United States and Soviets, respectively. In their selfish attempts to be happy and to please themselves, they ended up endangering others by releasing this technology to people who are willing to use it. Thus, even though they are clueless, they are not innocent in their actions. As a result, a blatant hypocrisy emerges in everything these characters, as well as almost every other character in //Cat's Cradle//, do. For example, John, the protagonist, criticizes all three of the Hoenikker children for being so selfish in their actions, especially for the sexual base of their immaturity. Afterwards, he proceeds to accept the presidency of San Lorenzo solely because he is promised to marry Mona, a woman he finds incredibly beautiful. Together, these criticisms of innocence and implications of hypocrisy complete Vonnegut's claims against the society he lives in.

The satire, humor, and dark humor Vonnegut develops in //Cat's Cradle// support the themes he creates throughout the novel. When Felix Hoenikker is told to find a solution for boots getting stuck in the mud, he doesn't think of making lighter boots with broader bases or making show-shoe like devices for the mud or even telling the military general assigning him the project to just go around the mud. Instead, he decides to harden all the mud on the planet to completely alleviate the problem. Forever. Along those same lines, I would blow up the sun so I don't get sunburned when I go to the beach this summer. It's a laughable solution. However, Vonnegut's society (and our society) created similar extravagant solutions to simpler problems. How can we come to terms with the Russians? Beat them in a race to the moon, of course! How do we protect ourselves from nuclear attacks? Lasers! In some cases, technologies created to solve problems can have unintended moral implications, and Vonnegut questions readers whether they can can trust their scientists making these decisions. For example, the controversial issue of stem cell research has sparked heated debate in America, raising ethical issues and deeper philosophical questions such as the beginning and the meaning of life. So although they are outright funny in some cases, Vonnegut's contentions are valid even in our society today. And as a whole, that was Vonnegut's main intention in writing //Cat's Cradle//. He wanted to create a cynical, hilarious, dystopian world with hypocritical, ridiculous characters that, despite how crazy it is, makes the reader stop and think, "Is this really that different from our society today?"