The Similarities Between Jailbird And Cat's Cradle

The novels Jailbird and Cat’s Cradle were skillfully written by Kurt Vonnegut in the late 20th century and though he has been criticized for his works these books speak as a testament as to why he’s far above the average author. In Jailbird, Walter Starbuck is a former bureaucrat that was tied up into the Watergate Scandal and in Cat’s Cradle Jonah/John was an author trying to find out about Felix Hoenikker for his latest book and I have found that they have some striking similarities but they also have some big differences. I will discuss the power struggles, the interconnectedness, social and political structure and how people being wilfully blind either helped or damned them.
We start out meeting Walter Starbuck in jail and talking about

the timeline of important parts of his life and those who were close to him. From the start we can see that he has lived a good bit of life and that his life is almost complete as he’s a lonely old man now with a lot of experience. He has mostly worked in the government because he considers that to be the highest calling in democracy, “I believe there is no higher calling in democracy than lifetime service in government.”(Walter Starbuck.) It may be true that he considers democracy to be the highest calling in democracy but I suspect that he likes the power he gets from having a government position as it gives him some reason in life to think he’s doing something important. Although he knew that no-one in the government really cared about what he did he still did his work to occupy his time. In the same way John from Cat’s Cradle was looking for something to occupy his time so he decided to write a book. Like Walter, John was pretty lonely too because he had no family that he saw, any current relationship or any friends. Writing a book gave his life meaning and when he travelled to San Lorenzo he gained new interest in his life in pursuing Mona. Both main characters have no real purpose to what they do and they go head on to whatever sparks their interest more than what they’re currently doing.
John and Walter are like floaters in society because they aren’t one hundred percent for or against anything. They have a place in their societies because everything is interconnected and sometimes the floaters are important as they can give extra support here and there. The interconnectedness in Cat’s Cradle is obvious because in San Lorenzo the government and people are interconnected, Bokonon and papa Monzano are connected, Mona and Bokonism are connected and the Catholic church and Bokonism are also connected. All those things and people interconnected are often at odds but they help to keep a balance in the society. As we can see when papa Monzano has a connection with ice nine and gave up his spot he affected the entire island. Either fate or just really bad luck caused the fighter plane to crash into the seaside palace and made the frozen body of papa Monzano to fall into the sea and freeze up everything and cause widespread death. Papa Monzano and the life of the island were clearly connected as after his death most things died also. In Jailbird there was interconnectedness too but it was not as strong, or deadly as in Cat’s Cradle. In Jailbird Walter was interconnected with his dead wife, he was connected with the fellow prisoners, the RAMJAC Corporation was connected with the people, and Walter was still slightly connected to his son. One connection that can be assumed to be true was between Walter and his late wife because when Walter tried to make a connection with another woman, she died and he ended up in jail again. Whenever there is a connection and one side messes up or changes, everything usually goes out of control.
The balance of a society is usually between two powerful forces that may contradict each other.

The government of San Lorenzo and Bokonon were the powerful forces that controlled the San Lorenzan population. The government took on the role of the punisher while Bokonon soothed the people and gave them hope and guidance. Bokonon owned the hearts of the masses while the Government owned their bodies. The conditions of their bodies were parallel to the government because they both were in poor condition and they had lots of heart because Bokonon was alive and doing well and still motivating them. The religion Bokonon started was not made to glorify a God or deity but in fact to keep fellow men sacred, “’What is sacred to Bokononists?’ I asked after a while. ‘Not even God, as near as I can tell.’ ‘Nothing?’ ‘Just one thing.’ I made some guesses. ‘The ocean? The sun?’ ‘Man,’ said Frank. ‘That’s all. Just man.’ ” (Vonnegut, “Cat’s cradle” 211). Bokonon realized that even if he could not uplift the society through governmental reforms he could give the people something that would bring the unity and peace of mind that they needed so that they can live better lives. The government enforced Christianity was not doing anything to really make the peoples life better and they rejected it because it was forced upon them, unlike Bokononism. In Jailbird the power was balanced between the authorities and the money. The money has power because it is what everyone wants and will do anything

to have and it can either enrich or destroy their lives. Money is the reason that Walter Starbuck and many other bureaucrats went to jail in the first place and money is what allowed Walter to throw a party at the end of the novel. And the authorities’ powers were to arrest people and jail them and uphold justice in the society. The authorities showed no disparity in whom they arrested showing that no-one was above the law. The power forces in Cat’s Cradle and Jailbird were somewhat similar because one played the enforcer or punisher role while the other made them feel nice, but they were also different because in Cat’s Cradle they were directly opposing each other but in Jailbird they were not in opposition as money was a trap for those who became greedy to get caught by the authorities.
The San Lorenzans had been taken advantage of by various people and when Bokonon came along with his new religion with the basic principles of keeping other people sacred and happy they readily accepted it.

San Lorenzan people likely were aware that Bokononism wasn’t really a “true” religion and was just made up by Bokonon but they followed it blindly anyways because it gave them a reason to live and gave them a sense of rebellion against their rulers. The harmless untruths, as they called it, were good enough to keep them happy. “Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.” (Vonnegut, “The Books of Bokonon” I: 5). A similar kind of mentality was in Jailbird when Walter was withholding the will of Mary Kathleen. He would’ve considered the will irrelevant and hiding it was for the best of everyone but that’s why the authorities wanted to arrest him again. It’s also this same mentality that got Walter involved in the Watergate scandal in the first place. “He was speaking of the corpus delecti of my Watergate crime, which was an old-fashioned steamer trunk containing one million dollars in unmarked and circulated twenty-dollar bills. It was an illegal campaign contribution. It became necessary to hide it when the contents of the White House safes were to be examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and men from the Office of the Special Prosecutor. My obscure office in the subbasement was selected as the most promising hiding place. I

acquiesced.” (Vonnegut, “Jailbird” 97). Walter was wilfully blind like the San Lorenzans about what was being done with the money and it cost him his job and his freedom.
I found that Vonnegut’s Jailbird and Cat’s Cradle were similar on a few fronts but mostly I found them to be more dissimilar from each other because of the nature of the stories. While Cat’s Cradle dealt with the destruction of a society and a people, Jailbird dealt with the falling apart of the protagonist’s life and how him holding on to wealth illegally caused problems twice. The both are interesting books but I enjoyed Cat’s Cradle more because of the more creative nature of the story and Bokonon’s famous calypsos. In conclusion, while both stories are fictitious they can teach some things about life like people will turn a blind eye to a wrong that makes them feel good, and that doing wrong will more than likely catch up with you in the future. I think Vonnegut produced these two great stories and I enjoyed reading them.