cats cradle
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, one of the century's greatest anthropological works, deals with religion, science, and the end of the world; its major theme involves the symbolic nature of the title of the book. The theme of the cat's cradle is used throughout the book to represent many of the truths, as viewed by Vonnegut, that are found in society. A cat's cradle is essentially a game played by all ages and almost all nationalities; "Even the Eskimos know it"(Cat's Cradle 114). It is a game using an endless string, a loop, six feet in circumference, which is wound, looped, or strung between the hands of the players. It symbolically and historically is used to represent many things, like stories, or figures like the one figure which is its name sake, the cat's cradle. In actuality it is still, according to Vonnegut, "nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands." (C.C. 114) This in turn gives Vonnegut's definition for many of Man's creations in the world. One of Kurt Vonnegut's major areas of examination or ridicule in Cat's Cradle is the world's religions. To elaborate on the point of religion, Vonnegut invents his own religion, Bokonism, in which the first essential rule is, according t
John is the narrator of the story who is writing a book about the day the first atomic bomb was used against Japan. He intends to show what the important people who built the bomb were doing on that day. Felix is one of the inventors mixed up in the Manhattan Project, but he has no realization of any of the implications of his work. He is a genius, even to the extent that he has no concept of common sense or reality; he approaches everything as a child would approach a game. This is how Vonnegut relates the cradle to science, as a game. Felix, not thinking of his own responsibility to mankind, invents the atomic bomb, but this is not his only doomsday device. He also secretly devises a new form of ice, stable at room temperature, called Ice-9. Ice-9, after Felix's death, ends up in the hands of his children. The children then carry it with them throughout life, but each one using it for their own power or aggrandizement. Ice-9 eventually ends up in the hands of the Soviets as well as the hands of "Papa" Monzana, the ruler of San Larenzo. "Papa" uses the ice to take his own life by touching it to his mouth, instantly freezing him. Then within one chapter, due to accidental occurrences Papa ends up in the ocean, freezing the entire world's water supply. According to Daniel Zins, ice-nine was Felix Hoenikker's "final toy" which ended the world. Vonnegut uses Ice-9 to take the place of nuclear weapons throughout his novel for his own creative purpose of forcing society to reevaluate the danger of "unbridled technology", nuclear weapons, and the arms race(Zins 171). The children's irresponsibility with the Ice-9 then parallels the potential results of society in its irresponsible use of nuclear power. Zins goes further to say that, "We may prefer to blame our nuclear predicament on an unbridled technology, but Vonnegut suggests that it is our failure to be fully human that especially endangers us."(171) This means that people should take responsibility for what they produce with science. Science can not be treated like a game, or else we end up with a cat's
Some common words found in the essay are:
Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut Ice-9, Newt Hoenikker, San Larenzo, Felix Hoenikker, Manhattan Project, Rube Goldberg, John Simons, Larenzo Papa, John/Jonah John, cat's cradle, religion people, x's somebody's hands, society cat's cradle, cradle actuality, somebody's hands, x's somebody's, bunch x's, science game, vonnegut suggests, cat's cradle actuality, bunch x's somebody's, society cat's, cc 114,
Approximate Word count = 1395
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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