Cat's Cradle Literary Analysis

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Recommended: Literary criticism of Kurt Vonnegut

In the novel “Cat’s Cradle” Kurt Vonnegut did a great job when it came to using literary techniques. So could you image a novel or a story of any kind that had a poor use of literary devices? Because it would most likely be uninteresting or just would not make much sense to the reader. If you read the novel “Cat’s Cradle” before then it probably was neither one of these things to you, in fact it would probably be the complete opposite of those two things. If you have ever read a book before then chances are that it had some form of literary devices somewhere throughout it. Kurt Vonnegut’s use of character throughout his novel “Cat’s Cradle” is the subject for this paper, and by the use of character I mean what did the author do with the characters …show more content…

Since everyone on the island is a bokononist then they all say the same words at certain times. Such as if you are a bokononist then you would have the same actions as every other bokononist when you were about to die, doing the specific ritual known as bokomaru, being distant from Bokonon so that they would not get the hook, and they all believe in telling harmless lies.This can be an example of imagery because the reader can visualize a sharp hook, two people performing a foot ritual, someone telling a lie, and someone saying something before they die. Some of the most important actions are when Dr.Felix Hoenikker created ice-nine, as his children split it up between themselves once he died, and as they gave up their portions of ice-nine away to someone for something in return. Some of the words expressed were as John said “The girl on the cover was enough for me---more than enough, since I had fallen in love with her on sight”, and as he said “Her name was Mona Aamons Monzano, the cover said”. These words are important because it allowed the reader to understand the characteristics of John and Mona, and it allowed the reader to possibly be able to infer that John is the protagonist of the novel. John’s having the thought of him being assassinated if he was to become the new president of San Lorenzo, but that thought went away as he …show more content…

“To successfully analyze literature authors must make specific choices for particular reasons”.”The novel should point out the author’s choices and attempt to explain their significance”. “Cat’s Cradle” encouraged me to think why this novel was written, and I came to the conclusion that it is written in order to entertain the reader. Kurt Vonnegut made specific choices for specific reason numerous times throughout the novel, such as he decided to make the atomic bomb throughout the novel be portrayed as ice-nine because in most cases a frosty blue white substance is easier to visualize than a generalized atomic bomb. The novel pointed out all of John’s choices and explained why he did it such as when John agreed to become president of San Lorenzo, and his significance for doing that was so that he would be able to be with

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