Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle chronicles the wanderings of a writer named John. The book, stylized as if written by John himself, tells John’s perspective of the events that lead to the end of the world at the hands of a dangerous substance named ice-nine. Initially hoping to write a book about the invention of the nuclear bomb, John instead encounters many peculiar characters, including satirical representations of the society that Vonnegut perceived around him. In his writings, John frequently details his personal set of beliefs: a religion named Bokononism. Originating from the small island nation of San Lorenzo, Bokononism is a religion practiced by a large amount of characters in the book. Unlike other religions, Bokononism is practiced very differently and contains many unorthodox beliefs. Rather than worshiping God, Bokononists are known to hold only one thing sacred -- man. The unusual beliefs that Bokononists hold may seem strange to outsiders, but as the book develops readers begin to understand more and more of what the tenets of Bokononism are, much in the same way John does throughout the story. The argument that Vonnegut presents in Cat’s Cradle is that Bokononism is the ideal tool for satisfying people’s spiritual and existential needs. Because of this, …show more content…
most of the characters in the Book choose to become Bokononists. Due to his search for the real story behind the late Dr. Felix Hoenikker, John travels to many places. In these travels, John encounters and learns of individuals who live lives that do not have any purpose. Drifting aimlessly, these characters drudge through their weary existences, all the while looking for meaning and order in their chaotic lives. A small island in the caribbean and the site of the apocalypse, San Lorenzo is home to a large amount of these people. The reason the chaos and meaningless seems especially poignant in San Lorenzo compared to other places is the history and the shared cultural experience the islanders have suffered. San Lorenzo began its long career of being conquered by larger powers with the Spanish Explorer Hernando Cortes in 1519. After the spaniards, other European powers came and took over San Lorenzo with little to no effort. The reason for these easy transitions from country to country was simple: “God, in His Infinite Wisdom, had made the island worthless.” (125) Unlike other new world lands the europeans discovered, San Lorenzo was barren. On the island there was and no gold or resources to be found, only miserable natives and disease. The reason the island exchanged hands so much was that the Foreign powers did not care much about the island’s loss. After many exchanges between European powers, a San Lorenzan native named Tum-bumwa took over the island and finally made San Lorenzo Independant. The Europeans did not care enough about the island to attempt to take it back. Described as “A maniac”, Tum-bumwa later went on to immortalize himself by building the fantastic San Lorenzo Cathedral and his magnificent defensive fortifications. Tum-bumwa’s contributions for San Lorenzo’s future are summarised eloquently in Philip Castle’s book, San Lorenzo: The Land, the History, the People: The fortifications have never been attacked, nor has any sane man ever proposed any reason why they should be attacked. They have never defended anything. Fourteen hundred persons are said to have died while building them. Of these fourteen hundred, about half are said to have been executed in public for substandard zeal. (126) Many years after Tum-bumwa’s disastrous rule in San Lorenzo, a company named Castle sugar stepped in and gained control of the small island. Because of the lack of resources and the dearth of economic value in the island, they barely broke even. However, like their predecessors, the company did succeed in worsening the day to day lives of the locals. The form of government was anarchy, save in limited situations wherein Castle Sugar wanted to own something or to get something done. In such situations the form of government was feudalism. The nobility was composed of Castle Sugar’s plantation bosses, who were heavily armed white men from the outside world. The knighthood was composed of big natives who, for small gifts and silly privileges would kill or wound or torture on command.(124) Castle sugar continued to rule over the natives until 1922. Their kingdom ended when the two young idealists McCabe and Johnson arrived, causing the company to “withdraw flaccidly, as though from a queasy dream.” (126) By the time that John arrives in San Lorenzo, conditions have not gotten too much better.
When John arrives in San Lorenzo and looks into the crowd of locals gathered around him, he sees only poverty and suffering. “The people were thin. There was not a fat person to be seen. Every person has teeth missing. Many legs were bowed or swollen.” (136) The people of San Lorenzo live in a constant state of squalor and pain, and many tragic stories of misery are told to John by the islanders. Philip Castle recalls an experience he witnessed as a child when the bubonic plague broke out on the island due to a shipwrecked foreign trade boat. Philip recalls the horrific sights he saw on the island as a
child: ‘When the plague was having everything in its own way, the House of Hope and Mercy in the jungle looked like Auschwitz or Buchenwald. We had stacks of dead so deep and wide that a bulldozer actually stalled trying to shove them toward a common grave. (161) The bubonic plague of San Lorenzo was a horrible event in the history of the country, but it wasn’t the first of those kinds. Ever since the Europeans arrived the San Lorenzans have been forced to suffer through one injustice after another, all the while having to deal with the overall terrible living conditions of the Island. However, things begin to grow slightly better for them after a man named Lionel Boyd Johnson arrives on the island. Witnessing the pain and suffering the San Lorenzans go through in their everyday lives, a British episcopalian man from the island of Tobago named Lionel Boyd Johnson decided he would take it upon himself to fix their horrible standard of life. Born a wealthy man, the youngest of six children, Johnson found himself in San Lorenzo due to a series of many unlikely coincidences which he perceived as fate. After enlisting in the infantry during world war one, the young Johnson was injured by gas, hospitalized and discharged. On his way home, many unfortunate events happened to his means of transportations and ways of coming back home. These mysterious and unlikely events caused Johnson to decide to continue his wandering lifestyle. In Johnson’s eyes, fate seemed to be bringing him somewhere. After many years of drifting, Johnson finally arrived home, promptly built another boat, and sailed back to the seas around the Caribbean. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1922, Johnson was approached by a marine deserter named Earl McCabe while hiding out from a storm. The two men agreed to travel to Miami after the storm ended together, however fate struck again. A powerful wind brought their boat into the shore of San Lorenzo. Broken and battered, the two men swam up to shore. For Johnson, this was a spiritual experience.
Also I found it very interesting how it was illegal to practice Bokonism, yet everyone on the island, including Papa practices it. It's almost as if Vonnegut is trying to tell us how other religions are. . . and if any religion is a true and honest religion.
The book begins with a writer named John researching for his book about the day the atomic bomb was dropped. He talks with Newt, son of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the creator of the atomic bomb. He then goes to Illium, the town where the Hoenikkers grew up, and there he learns of ice-nine, one splinter of which could freeze all the oceans of the world. John soon discovers that Frank, the other son of Felix, is on a small island called San Lorenzo. He goes there to research more for his book. On the plane he meets Newt in person, who turns out to be a midget, and the Crosbys, a married couple. John reads a book the Crosbys give him on the plane all about the religion of Bokononism and it's customs. One custom is Bokomaru, touching the souls of feet together to grow closer. He also reads of how Bokonon, the creator of Bokononism, was outlawed.
Kurt Vonnegut writes pessimistic novels, or at least he did back in the sixties. Between Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut paints a cynical and satirical picture of the degradation of society using distortion as the primary means to express himself. In Cat's Cradle, the reader is confronted with the story of the narrator, John, as he attempts to gather material to write a book on the human aspect of the day Japan was bombed. As the story progresses, he finds that becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from illusion. He meets up with a midget, a dictator, and a nation's object of lust as his journey progresses, and he eventually ends up the sole leader of a remote island and witnesses the end of the world. Using implausible stories and unbelievable characters and situations to convey his message, Vonnegut's utilization of literary distortion allows him to move the reader and prove his point in a far greater way than he could by just blatantly shouting his opinions. "Anyone unable to understand how useful a religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either"(16), states the narrator, concerning Cat's Cradle. Throughout the text, Vonnegut uses the religion of Bokononism, which is a fictitious faith founded on the basis of deception, to establish that people can prosper and be happy under false beliefs. When two men founded the island nation of San Lorenzo, Cat's Cradle's model for society, it was...
Relationships and Interdependence in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut While on the surface Kurt Vonnegut's works appear to singularly contain the pessimistic views of an aging, black humorist, his underlying meanings reveal a much more sympathetic and hopeful glimpse of humanity that lends itself to eventual societal improvement. As part of Vonnegut's strategy for enhanced communal welfare, the satirist details in the course of his works potential artificial family groups to connect the masses and alleviate the lonely.
Vonnegut also introduces a medium for coincidence early. If Vonnegut waits until the plot thickens, heavy in coincidence, to tell us about "Bokononism" and the inexplicable nature of a "karass", he would quickly lose credibility.
I think one thing that Vonnegut is trying to show us is that man too easily accepts things as valid without questioning. Refering to this, Newt, another character, says, "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's…No damn cat, and no damn cradle" (114).
The narrator's lack of control on events brings up one of the main themes of the story which is embodied in a fictitious religion invented by Vonnegut, Bokononism. Bokononism is Vonnegut's way of describing the main theme of the book, which is that no matter what anyone does, no one can possibly change the incredible stupidity of mankind. Bokononism contends that all religions (including Bokononism) are nothing but a pack of hideous lies which should be completely disregarded. Even with this self-defeating underlying...
Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional novel “Cat’s Cradle”, indirectly explores issues that parallels into topics such as religion, scientific/technological advancements, political power and much more. Vonnegut’s novel is narrated by a character named Jonah (John). He, Jonah, sets out to write an anthropological book based off of what key people were doing on the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Throughout Vonnegut’s novel it can clearly represents how a writer can become a very destructive person to society. As for this novel, it shows through the uses of parallels that a writer can become a very destructive person to society, these parallels are reflects to real world issues throughout his novel to show this claim, that a writer too can be a destructive person to society.
Vonnegut and Jackson, through the use of well written short stories, have managed to address concerning issues in today’s societies. Through the use of Harrison Bergeron Kurt Vonnegut was able to address the growing issue of equality, this is a very important issue as many people in modern societies view the idea of equality to be incredible. Shirley Jackson through The Lottery addressed the concerning issue of societies blindly following religions and traditions due to superstitions and the unwillingness to change. These dystopian texts demonstrate the inevitable outcome these problems will eventually cause.
Kurt Vonnegut expresses the theme of pacifism by using humor to depict technology in a negative light. Kurt Vonnegut expresses the theme of pacifism by using humor to depict technology in a negative light through the dehumanization of technology. He shows he horrors of technology in his book Cat’s Cradle, where John, the main character, wants to write a book about the day the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The book ended in the usual dark humor that Vonnegut uses when the book ended with the end of the world and when another character, Bokonon, suggests that someone should write a book on the history of human stupidity. Most of the book is about the development of the Atomic technology that was used on the day in Hiroshima. Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle is, "Vonnegut's most highly praised novel. Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this apocalyptic story tells of Earth's ultimate end, and presents a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny, as Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness" (Barnes and Noble n.pag). In Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut uses satire as a vehicle for threatened self-destruction when he designs the government of San Lorenzo. In addition, the Bokonists practice of Boko-maru, and if the world is going to end in total self destruction and ruin, then people will die, no matter how good people are and what religion people believe.
One of the most prevalent themes in Vonnegut’s works is religion. In the early pages of Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut submits his contention that "a useful religion can be founded on lies (Vonnegut, Cats Cradle 16)," meaning that, fundamentally, religion is about people, not about faith or God. Reminiscent of Karl Marx’s description of religion as the "opiate of the masses," he describes all religions as mere collections of "harmless untruths" that help people cope with their lives. The Book of Bokonon in Cat's Cradle represents this portrait of religion at both its dreariest and its most uplifting, Bokononism is contradictory, paradoxical, and founded on lies; its followers are aware of this...
Plagues and Peoples. By William H. McNeill. (New York: Anchor Books: A division of Random House, Inc., 1976 and Preface 1998. Pp. 7 + 365. Acknowledgements, preface, map, appendix, notes, index.)
An unknown eye witness accounts details of the immediate stress the plague brought to Europe. "Realizing what a deadly disaster had come to them, the people quickly drove the Italians from their city. But the disease remained, and soon death was everywhere. Fathers abandoned their sick sons. Lawyers refused to come and make out wills for the dying.
In 1348, people from all around the world suffered from one of the most deadliest and cruel diseases known as the Black Death. The plague killed so many people in Europe that some of the villages were abandoned and the population of some cities was decreased by half. Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer and poet who eye-witnessed and described the horrors caused by the Black Death in his novels Decameron. In Boccaccio’s work, the sick people were left behind to survive on their own and even children were left behind by their parents because they were sick. Unfortunately, from all the people who died during the epidemic, the peasants were those who actually benefited from it. The Black Death end up with political,