Satire and Surrealism in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

Satire and Surrealism in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

In 1963, Kurt Vonnegut published his second novel Cat's Cradle. It is a distressing yet satirical critique of our society and the surrealistic end that is its destiny. Through his use of irony and sarcasm he attacks and exposes society's flaws while questioning its intelligence. Nothing is safe from his satiric pen. He attacks science and religion with equal intensity. He creates a novel that has left, "an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers" (back cover).

Society has constructed many pillars (religion, science) to protect us from the unknown. Kurt Vonnegut uses satire to tear them down. He attacks religion through his false religion of Bokononism. It is a religion of "shameless lies"(5). Newt summarizes religion up best when he compares it to the cat's cradle. "Religion! . . . See the cat? . . . See the cradle?" Yet, perhaps the greatest attack on religion comes in the last paragraph of the novel. Bokonon himself says, "If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity. . . and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horrible, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who"(287).

The antithesis of religion is science. It is the provider of horrifying truths. Kurt Vonnegut satirical looks at how science will lead to the destruction of mankind. It is the scientist who created the atom bomb and it is the scientist who created Ice-9, yet the scientist refuses to take responsibility for it. Vonnegut satirically looks at the irresponsibility of the scientist through Felix Hoenikker who says, "Why should I bother with made-up games when there are so many real ones going on?"(11). He never understands that the games he is playing will have a disastrous effect on the human race.

This disaster comes in the form of Ice-9. Kurt Vonnegut creates a surrealistic view of the apocalypse. It is a new and strange world that Jonah returns to after hiding for a week in the bomb shelter. It is a world that could have been found on the canvas of a Salvador Dali painting. The earth is a blue-white pearl, and the sky is filled with worm-like tornadoes while the sun has become a tiny cruel sickly yellow ball (261).