Cat’s Cradle (1963)

by Kurt Vonnegut
Jelea Alexandra
Pușcaș Ana-Paula
Susarenco Teodora
Romanian-English group, 3rd year
 KURT VONNEGUT
(1922 - 2007)
● american novelist
● short-story writer
● dramatist
● essayist
● scriptwriter
 CAT’S CRADLE (1963)

- Vonnegut’s first novel to draw serious critical

attention
- Satire on philosophy, religion, and technological
progress
 Characters
● John - the narrator
● Bokonom abd Edward McCabe - ● Julian Castle - owner of the
created the religion of Castle Sugar Corporation, he
Bokononism opened a charity hospital on
● Felix Hoenikker - a key San Lorenzo
researched in the development
of the atomic bomb
● Angela, Frank, Newt - the 3
children of Felix Hoenikker
● `Papa` Monzano - the dictator
of the small island republic of
San Lorenzo
● Asa Breed - Felix’s supervisor
at the Research Laboratory
where Felix helped develop the
atomic bomb
 “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.” (Cat’s Cradle, p. 191)
 ➢Irony
➢Black Humor
➢Parody
➢short length-127 discrete chapters.

Vonnegut himself has claimed that his

books "are essentially mosaics made
up of a whole bunch of tiny little
chips...and each chip is a joke."
background
After World War II, Kurt Vonnegut worked in
the public relations department for the
General Electric research company.

His job was to interview the scientists who

worked there and find good stories about
their research. Vonnegut felt that the older
scientists were indifferent about the ways
their discoveries might be used.

The Nobel Prize-winning chemist Irving

Langmuir- the model for Dr. Felix Hoenikker.

Vonnegut said in an interview with The

Nation that "Langmuir was absolutely
indifferent to the uses that might be made
of the truths he dug out of the rock and
handed out to whoever was around, but any
truth he found was beautiful in its own
right, and he didn’t give a damn who got it
satirized elements in Cat’s Cradle
➢ Many critics rightfully point to science
and religion as two of the main targets of
satire in Cat’s Cradle.

➢ He does indeed satirize man’s willingness

to believe that absolute truths can be
found in science or religion, but his real
target of satire is the root of such
beliefs: man’s willingness to act or
believe without real thought or
consideration. He shows the results of such
a universal lack of human thoughtfulness in
three main aspects of life — the two
previously mentioned, science and religion,
and a third, love.
 POSTMODERNISM
Postmodern concepts in Cat’s Cradle

TRUTH

PROGRESS

ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE (attaining it through

SCIENCE)
 TITLE
The lies people tell themselves to help themselves feel better.

Some characters lie to themselves for happiness, like a child pretending to see the cat and
the cradle because they enjoy the game.

A parallel between the book and the children's game.

Will you be one of the people who accept and find truth in the lie or will you shrug the story off as just
another bit of fiction?
themes
The Danger of Technological Science Destruction of the human race
The truth= Science (for Papa Monzano)

Advancement Science comes with the lack of moral

capacity to understand other people
Dr. Hoenikker is incapable of
Dr. Hoenikker= the carelessness of
responding emotionally to people
science
or thinking about the possible
long-term outcomes of his
The scientists of Vonnegut’s novel are
scientific experimentation.
blind to moral basis; blinded because of
their own faith in science as “magic that
While he does not actually appear
works” and in science as an ideology
as a character in the novel, his
higher than respecting the grandeur of
existence has long-term effects
any human.
on his children and ultimately—
and most importantly—on all of
“Nothing generous about it. New knowledge
mankind.
is the most valuable commodity on earth.
The more truth we have to work with, the
richer we become.”
 Conclusion

Science does provide hope in some

aspects, but it provides equally as
many fears if left unchecked by the
human factors of foresight, thought
and consideration.

Our need to believe in science,

religion, or any other institution
to create meaning in our lives has
been taken so far as to hinder us
from understanding in any real way
such a basic emotion as love.
RELIGION - BOKONONISM
“The action of Cat’s Cradle could be described as a
movement from Hoenikker to Bokonon” (Shippey
2).

As Lundquist explains, “To maintain order and to take

the minds of the people off their wretched economic
condition, [Bokonon and McCabe] concoct an ersatz
religion based (among other ideas) on translating
good vibrations from one believer to another by
pressing the soles of the feet together” (35).
truth
“Nothing in this book is true”
“Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and
kind, healthy and happy”
-Human Beings crave a higher form of truth that will give meaning to their daily
lives.
-Religions have supplied these higher truths in the past, but because of advances in
science, spiritual truths have become suspect in twentieth century.
-When people believe that they have the “Truth”, they seek to impose their beliefs on
others, and the religous wars are the inevitable result.
Human condition
-in perceiving
love-
 Each character seems to have a warped sense of love in his life.
The only characters who seem to have any real understanding of love are the
Mintons. While their love seems limited to one another, Mrs. Minton shows a very
deep understanding of the concept of love.
The human folly that Vonnegut satirizes is our need for a comforting illusion in
which to believe.
Vonnegut, on the other hand, sees hope for mankind. He offers many hints
throughout Cat’s Cradle that suggest his remedy for the currently self-destructive state of
mankind: THOUGHT.
SYMBOLS:
1. Cat’s Cradle
2. Ice-nine
3. NEWT’S SIZE
4. aNIMAL iMAGERY
 1.Cat’s Cradle
❏ The long history and universality of the
cat’s cradle makes it a perfect symbol for
all of humanity’s varied attempts to
structure the world in a meaningful way,
including magic, religion, fiction,
philosophy and science.

❏ For Newt, the Cat’s cradle represents

parental tyranny over children because it
figures so prominently in his own childhood
trauma:

”No wonder kids grow up crazy. A Cat’s cradle

is nothing but a bunch of X’s between
somebody’s hands… No damn cat and no damn
cradle.”
2.NEWT’S SIZE
❖ For Vonnegut, Newt is a symbol of man as a
hopeful and thoughtful being, though Newt is
often overlooked by other characters in the
book because of his physical size. Perhaps
Newt’s size is Vonnegut’s symbol for how
much hope there seems to be at the moment —
little.
❖ As Jonah explains, the quotation about
midgets in The Books of Bokonon “captured in
a couplet the cruel paradox of Bokononist
thought, the heartbreaking necessity of
lying about reality, and the heartbreaking
impossibility of lying about it. ‘Midget,
midget, midget, how he struts and winks, for
he knows a man’s as big as what he hopes and
thinks.’”
AN INTERTEXTUAL READING
- in Moby Dick, the unsuccessful
attempt to kill the whale
results in the destruction of
the little world of the
whaleship
- in Cat’s Cradle, Dr.
Hoenikker’s success in creating
ice-nine leads to the
destruction of almost all life
on earth
 MOUNT McCabe
- described as ‘cetacean’, whale-
like
- recalling Melville’s chapter on
cetology, the study of whales
- John describes the mountain as
‘fearful humb’ as a ‘blue whale’
and its peak resembles ‘the
stump of snapped harpoon’
 Works Cited
(with additional works consulted)
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