Harrison Bergeron And Cat's Cradle

“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours” (biography.com) sums up the satirical ideas of renowned author, Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut was a popular writer who excelled in writing about the stupidity and ignorance of mankind. His extremely odd and fortunate life played an influential role in developing his writing style. In due time, Kurt Vonnegut became one of the most eminent satirical writers of his time and was quite perceptible in two of his works, “Harrison Bergeron” and Cat’s Cradle.

Kurt Vonnegut led an adventurous and interesting life, which greatly contributed to his writing style that made his works so enjoyable. Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 in the city of Indianapolis, Indiana where

he grew up with his older brother and sister. After graduating from high school in 1940, Vonnegut went on to attend Cornell University later that year. In 1942, Kurt Vonnegut was doing terribly in school, failing many classes, and decided to join the U.S. Army where he was later sent to another university to study engineering. Eventually, Vonnegut found himself fighting in the Battle of the Bulge where he was taken as a prisoner of war. This was the time when he was infamously kept in an underground meat locker during the firebombing of Dresden, Germany. For Kurt Vonnegut, this event was a turning point in his life because of how drastically his perspective on life changed afterwards. After returning home from the war, Vonnegut married twice and raised seven children; three of which were adopted from his sister who died from cancer.
Vonnegut’s writing career was nothing special, but proves how far he had come to be such a successful writer. Although it could be believed that Vonnegut’s writing career skyrocketed instantly, he actually had to work at several other jobs before publishing his first novel, Player Piano, which was, without a doubt, a satire. At that point, Vonnegut began to publish many more novels throughout the 1960s and became a powerful force in the literary world. Then, in 1969, Vonnegut published Slaughterhouse-Five, his most famous novel. In this story, Vonnegut spoke about his own experiences in the war and included other time warping sequences that completely dazzled readers everywhere. Due to constant encounters with depression and personal problems, Vonnegut actually attempted suicide in 1984. Fortunately, Vonnegut lived and was able to continue producing best selling novels until he passed away on April 11th, 2007 at 84 years old. Vonnegut’s extraordinary life led to many superb novels that people anywhere can read and enjoy his unique style of writing.
Cat’s Cradle and “Harrison Bergeron” were two of Vonnegut’s works that allowed people to fully envision the unique style, which included satire and dystopias, from which he used in his writing. Although both stories contain different plots and themes, as each novel should, there are many attributes to take into account for each story that are quite similar because both were written by the same person.
The plots of each story, of course, are quite different from one another. In Vonnegut’s novel, Cat’s Cradle, the plot follows the narrator, John, and his journey as he tried to write a book about one of the creators of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. In order to obtain the information he needs, John searches for the creator’s, Felix Hoenikker, children. Later on in the story, John discovers Felix’s creation of a highly dangerous substance known as “Ice-9”, which had the potential to end the world, as we know it. Many other problems arise as well, such as the outlaw named Bokonon and the religion he created, Bokononism. As John was learning about Felix’s children, he noticed many unsettling details about the Hoenikker family, humanity, and the ideals that affected many. For example, Newt Hoenikker demonstrated the distance he kept from his father by explaining how he was “saying over and over again how ugly he was, how much I hated him” (Vonnegut).
In contrast, “Harrison Bergeron” was about humanity living under the restrictions of a Handicapper General, who limited each person “from taking unfair advantages of their brains”(Vonnegut). However, one person, by the name of Harrison Bergeron, wanted to break free from the chains of this false society and express himself as he saw fit. As everyone watched in awe, Harrison broke his restraints and tried to show everyone how life should truly be lived. This was, unfortunately, short-lived because the Handicapper General came shortly after and shot Harrison. The ending was particularly unnerving because the people watching the actions unfold through the television screen instantly forgot what was going on and the legacy of Harrison Bergeron vanished into being remembered as “something real sad on television”(Vonnegut).
Along with having dissimilar plots, the themes of each story were quite different but, nonetheless, carried a lot of meaning in them.

For Cat’s Cradle, one of the most major themes of the story is the need for lies in our society. In the story, John realizes how Bokononism was secretly in an alliance with the President of San Lorenzo, yet Bokonon was still labeled as an outlaw. The people of San Lorenzo, however, needed these lies to function and to live their everyday lives. John saw how the government fed them lies everyday, but Bokonon “made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies”(Vonnegut). Without having an outlaw to go against the terrible government they are living under, the people would have no hope and no motivation to go on with life. Another crucial theme was that family is more important than work. Felix Hoenikker was a famous scientist, but his family life was disarrayed emotionally. He had absolutely no personal bonds with any of his children, making him an empty figure in their lives, which affected them in the long run. John was able to see the carelessness of each child during the time they had possession of Ice-9, which led to world-threatening mistakes. Eventually, “the moist green earth was a blue-white pearl”(Vonnegut) due to the irresponsible children who never had a parent in their lives to teach them any better. This theme highlights the importance of family above all

else.
The story “Harrison Bergeron” took on another serious theme, but was still quite different.

Perhaps one of the only key themes in this short story was the idea that humanity would suffer greatly with limitations. At the beginning, there is clearly an expressed opinion that equality was good and people “weren’t only equal before God and the law”(Vonnegut). Everybody in modern society is obsessed with the idea of being equal with some other person, due to minimal things such as jealousy. However, nobody has taken the time to actually ponder on the idea of an equal world. If the world were an equal place, there would be no people like Leonardo da Vinci or Isaac Newton and this would mean there would be no advances in society in any aspect. Every single person would have the same intelligence, beauty, and strength level. With no variables in our lives, life itself would turn into a meaningless pit of despair.

Although the plots and themes of Cat’s Cradle and “Harrison Bergeron” were different, they carried many other aspects that were similar. They both satirized society and its ideals and provided scenarios with gruesome details, all which led to fatalities on certain levels. Being written by the same author, there are multiple apparent similarities between these two stories that can be

observed.
Vonnegut’s stories almost always contained the intent to prove the ignorance of humanity by providing instances that gave people what they wanted. This meant that Vonnegut had to create dystopias and include similar characters in each of his stories to make those certain events occur. So, for both stories, there had to be at least one character that represented the way society should be, the way some wanted society to be, and the ones who helped that change come to be. The characters in each story could be seen as playing similar roles, in order to genuinely portray Vonnegut’s purpose.
In Cat’s Cradle, the character that represented the way society should be was the narrator, John. John was the one who was able to see the lies of Bokononism and notice the ignorance of the children and their father that led to the destruction of the world. However, he allows Bokononism to continue because he realizes that some people need lies in their lives since that is their hope. In “Harrison Bergeron”, the person who played the same role was Harrison Bergeron himself. Bergeron, in the story, tried to break free from the restraints placed on him because he knew that living life with limits is not living at all.
Felix Hoenikker represents society in the eyes of people who think it should change. Many people believe in the power of science and knowledge, but forget to consider family values as being important. Felix was the one who made this tragic error and in turn unknowingly caused the end of the world. The Handicapper General played the respective role by enforcing the idea that everyone should be equal and actually “came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun”(Vonnegut) to kill Harrison Bergeron, symbolically killing the freedom of human beings. Both characters played the same role in producing a dystopian world where people will be able to observe what they wished for.
In both stories, there were many characters that helped the change take full effect. For Cat’s Cradle, Felix’s children were the major factors because they allowed themselves to become so distant from their father, which resulted in careless behavior. This careless behavior contributed to the misuse of Ice-9 and the end of the world. In “Harrison Bergeron”, everybody was a contributing factor for the limitations of society because the laws were made due to the people’s request. Although the names of the characters in each story were different, there is no doubt that each character serves a similar role that another character plays in the other story.
Vonnegut’s writing style consisted of making up fake ideas and people in order to portray a more hectic society. In Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut introduced the idea of a nonexistent substance known as Ice-9 that had the capability of ending the world, while in “Harrison Bergeron”, he introduced the Handicapper General to simulate the idea of an equal world. Both scenarios are extremities in their own perspective, but the purpose of doing so allows Vonnegut to create a world where people would consider living in without actually evaluating the situation. This eventually led to the obliteration of the world in Cat’s Cradle and the desolation of creativity and free thought in “Harrison Bergeron”.
In addition to Vonnegut’s idiosyncratic style, he frequently chose to insert brief dialogues between characters that only consisted of a few words. In Cat’s Cradle and “Harrison Bergeron”, there would be certain areas where the text goes on to have a sequence of one-liner sentences that showed brief thoughts. The significance of these brief sentences portrayed the chaotic nature of the world because of how the text would show many people talking at once over an unimportant topic. For example, in Cat’s Cradle, Julian, Angela, and Newt are observing a painting of a cat’s cradle and are all trying to decipher the meaning of it. The following series of lines consists of many brief thoughts between them that contain no deep meaning but merely observations. When looking at it with a little common sense, one could see that there was simply “no damn cat, and no damn cradle”(Vonnegut). This interaction shows readers how Vonnegut utilizes short sentences to exhibit how people will look for answers that are not even there, leading to a chaotic nature.
The tone of each story could easily be identified as similar, since Vonnegut’s works tended to relate to the satire of humanity. Cat’s Cradle showed how humanity tends to focus on things such as science and knowledge, but tend to neglect family as a consequence. This neglect rippled into something much bigger and actually caused the end of the world in that story. Vonnegut made it clear that the cause for the end of humanity was a result of people choosing something over the values of a family. For “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut pointed out the disgust he had for people who wanted everyone to be equal with each other. Equality is good, but only up to a point. If creativity were to be destroyed, the advancement of mankind would cease and could potentially lead to the downfall of humanity instead. Although these tones are not exactly the same, they share the underlying basis that humanity needs to reassess the priorities in their lives.
Kurt Vonnegut will always be remembered as one the most famous satirical writer in history and his passing in 2007 caused great remorse in the literary world. However, Vonnegut has been immortalized through his ingenious way of writing and can be witnessed by reading his works such as, Cat’s Cradle and “Harrison Bergeron”.