Cat's Cradle

“After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, ‘Science has now known sin.’ And do you know what Father said? He said, ‘What is sin?’”

Here, Vonnegut explores the relationship between science and morality, showing that the two are on different planes but not entirely unrelated. When Dr. Hoenikker’s research contributes to the development of a deadly weapon on a previously unknown scale, he shows no real remorse or awareness of the consequences. As a character, Dr. Hoenikker is dedicated solely to the pursuit of scientific knowledge, leaving him to set aside questions of morality.

“A winded, defeated-looking fat woman in filthy coveralls trudged beside us […]. She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.”

Throughout the novel, Vonnegut juxtaposes the rank-and-file, so-called “common” people, with those who claim intellectual superiority. Here, he highlights one woman’s distaste for those, like Dr. Breed, who are prone to excessive research and analysis. Her feelings suggest a disconnect between the research they perform and the daily lives of most people.

“New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.”

Here, Dr. Breed expresses his philosophy. In retrospect, and from a Bokononist perspective, John finds his comment outrageous since, as his experiences demonstrate, facing or accessing truth rarely leads to greater happiness. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake instead leads to catastrophe, as exemplified in the atomic bomb and, later, ice-nine.

“I just have trouble understanding how truth, all by itself, could be enough for a person.”

Miss Faust, a secretary at General Forge and Foundry, recalls her interactions with Dr. Hoenikker and wonders how he could have been satisfied pursuing scientific truth alone. Her comment implies that there are limitations to which scientific inquiry can resolve human concerns or fulfill human desires. In a company dominated by male researchers, Miss Faust’s insightful comments run counter to the social hierarchy.

“I wasn’t a Bokononist then, so I agreed with some peevishness. As a Bokononist, of course, I would have agreed gaily to go anywhere anyone suggested. As Bokonon says: ‘Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.’”

As he recounts events, the narrator frequently indicates steppingstones on his way to accepting Bokononism. Moments like this one offer not only an insight into his character development but also serve as reminders to readers that they are reading a text written by one of the characters. This clarifies and sets up the metafictional elements that figure most prominently in the novel’s conclusion.

“From the pitying way Minton and his wife looked at each other, I gathered that I had said a fat-headed thing. […] And so it went with almost every subject I brought up. I couldn’t make the Mintons bubble about anything.”

As John makes small talk with the Mintons on the plane, he compliments them in areas he thinks they are sure to feel proud of, such as their political influence and their linguistic abilities. Instead of pleasing them, however, John feels that they are the ones humoring him. His inability to make any headway with them illustrates their own differing perspective as well as John’s superficial interests and concerns, especially prior to his adoption of Bokononism, which has little use for arbitrary political distinctions, among other things.

“The people down there are poor enough and scared enough and ignorant enough to have some common sense!”

Explaining his plan to open a bike factory in San Lorenzo, Lowe characterizes the people of San Lorenzo as easily exploitable as opposed to the more resistant Americans. In context, he is just one of several entities seeking to manipulate the people of San Lorenzo, making the island nation a metaphor for human society in all its complexity. When the people of San Lorenzo prove more difficult to exploit than Lowe anticipated, the implication is that people are not so different no matter where they live.

“Hazel’s obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon. Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows—and any nation, anytime, anywhere.”

John’s willingness to question the effectiveness of political and other alliances seems to align Vonnegut’s work with broader skepticism in postmodernism. The narrator is particularly harsh when it comes to various forms of tribalistic behavior, especially those centered on arbitrary political boundaries of states or nations. Within the context of Vonnegut’s background as an American veteran, such comments serve as a critique of American exceptionalism.

“Many people had taken over San Lorenzo—had invariably found it lightly held. The reason was simple: God, in his Infinite Wisdom, had made the island worthless.”

Reviewing the history of San Lorenzo, John is struck by how many times possession of the island has changed hands. His conclusion, that the island is functionally worthless, makes the island an ever more apt symbol for the human condition: Its people are its only asset. Vonnegut’s suggestion that the island’s low perceived value is, ironically, its greatest defense, is a typical example of his sly humor.

. “‘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…’

‘And?’

‘No damn cat, and no damn cradle.’”

As Newt explains the significance of his painting to John, he also gives the most explicit explanation of the central symbol that lends the novel its name. To him, the cat’s cradle is a symbol of communication breakdown, of disconnection between generations. The sense of distrust and betrayal he feels toward his father exemplifies the cycle of disillusionment children experience as they question earlier generations’ choices, particularly among those who grew up during World War II.

“Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies.”

Though Bokonon favors a generally optimistic outlook, the assumption underlying his religion is a sobering one: Political and economic reform are so ineffectual that the lies of a manufactured religion are preferable to facing reality. John’s conversion to Bokononism charts his gradual acceptance of this premise in the face of the horrible truth about ice-nine.

“Tiger got to hunt

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land,

Man got to tell himself he understand.”

Julian quotes this excerpt from The Books of Bokonon to John after they are astounded by Angela’s remarkable clarinet playing. The excerpt captures several hallmarks of Bokonon’s written style: his vernacular language, his tendency to speak in verse, his simple comparisons, and his keen insights into human nature. It also hints at John’s drive to write about events leading up to the spread of ice-nine, which stems from an urge to understand.

“‘Maturity,’ Bokonon tells us, ‘is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.’”

In keeping with themes of imagination and avoiding harsh reality, Bokonon suggests humor as a partial cure for the disillusionment associated with maturity. In keeping with Bokonon’s advice, as John recounts the events leading up to the destruction of most life via the release of ice-nine, he emphasizes the humor and irony of the narrative. This has the effect of both lightening the experience for readers while mocking the attitudes and behaviors that led to such a devastating outcome.

“Science is magic that works.”

On his deathbed, Papa Monzano exhorts John to focus on scientific advancements as his successor. His comparison between magic and science echoes the earlier remarks of the secretary at General Forge and Foundry who was bewildered by scientific displays. Papa Monzano’s comments hint at his possible motivations for unleashing ice-nine just before his death. To him, ice-nine is the pinnacle of science, and it works in the sense that it has a direct, undeniable effect that looks like magic.

“I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it’s unscientific. No scientist worthy of the name could say such a thing.”

Dr. von Koenigswald agrees to administer Bokononist last rites to Papa Monzano despite his conviction that there is no truth to them. Compared to some of the other scientists that appear in the novel, particularly those who share Dr. Breed’s philosophy, Dr. von Koenigswald may appear less rigorous or dedicated in his search for scientific truth. Instead of appealing to objective truth, Dr. von Koenigswald analyzes both scientific and religious principles in terms of how they impact people, marking him as a humanist.

“And I realized with chagrin that my agreeing to be boss had freed Frank to do what he wanted to do more than anything else, to do what his father had done: to receive honors and creature comforts while escaping human responsibilities. He was accomplishing this by going down a spiritual oubliette.”

John perceives a similar pattern in Frank and Dr. Hoenikker’s behaviors. He notes that each seeks a clear separation between his work and human interactions, which are viewed as undesirable. In both cases, their actions and neglect of human elements lead to devastating consequences. The implication is clear: The separation of science and morality poses serious risks.

“‘Write it all down,’ Bokonon tells us. He is really telling us, of course, how futile it is to write or read histories. ‘Without accurate records of the past, how can men and women be expected to avoid making serious mistakes in the future?’ he asks ironically.”

As a writer, John presumably believes that writing has the power to change people and, by extension, human societies. Over time, he identifies this thought as a comforting Bokononist lie. The truth, as he understands it, is much worse: People keep repeating the same mistakes despite their knowledge of history. This commentary also ties into Vonnegut’s use of metafiction, since Cat’s Cradle is presented as an explanation for the destruction of the world by ice-nine, which is simply repeating the earlier attitudes and behaviors that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

“What hope can there be for mankind […] when there are such men as Felix Hoenikker to give such playthings as ice-nine to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are?”

John comes to feel that human scientific advancement far outstrips human wisdom to use such advances responsibly. His suggestion that ice-nine is viewed as a toy and that those adults who have access to it are like children, emphasizes the way that scientific knowledge is used to gain leverage over others rather than to advance welfare generally. This hints at the political context of the novel’s publication, including the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

“And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children of San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind.”

Recalling the death of his own son, Horlick suggests the underlying cause of his death, as well as the deaths of San Lorenzo’s martyred soldiers, is not any particular wartime enemy but rather flawed human nature. In his view, it is nonsensical, if not hypocritical, to mark their deaths with displays of patriotism when it was patriotism and nationalism that fueled war. His suggestion that their time would be better spent opposing such flaws in human thinking connects with the larger theme of learning from the past.

“‘Everything must have a purpose?’ asked God.

‘Certainly,’ said man.

‘Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,’ said God.”

In Bokonon’s creation myth, it is the first human, not God, who insists on looking for meaning. In this way, Bokonon nods to the nihilism that John shrugged off earlier while leaving room for individuals to come up with their own meanings and interpretations of life. While Bokonon’s message regarding the purpose of life is inconclusive, the fact that he tries so hard to comfort other people through his religion hints at his spiritual priorities.

“In case anyone was interested, I knew what had gone wrong—where and how.”

John writes his book with the express purpose of explaining what led to the release of ice-nine into the ocean. His offhand attitude suggests that he is not optimistic that people will learn from what happened. His cynicism is validated in the way that several survivors of the ice-nine catastrophe carry on in their same foolish ways, with Hazel sewing an American flag and Frank obsessing over technical matters.

“The quotation captured in a couplet the cruel paradox of Bokononist thought, the heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality, and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it.”

As John comes to realize, Bokononism is built on paradoxes. While its teachings offer a pleasant outlook on life, that same outlook can become ironic when reality fails to align with Bokononist precepts. As conditions worsen following the release of ice-nine, Bokonon’s lies about God’s purposes come under increasing strain until he finally advises John to thumb his nose at God in a final act of defiance.

“I know now what my karass has been up to, Newt. It’s been working night and day for maybe half a million years to get me up that mountain.”

As John prepares to climb Mount McCabe, he clings to a sense of purpose and accomplishment in what is arguably a meaningless act since hardly anyone is left to benefit from his explanation of the origins of ice-nine. John’s embrace of Bokononism becomes a paradoxical act, a willful insistence that his life has meaning even as he acknowledges Bokonon’s admission that his teachings are not true. The more John stresses the significance of his actions, as he does in this quotation, the clearer the gap between what he says and what is real becomes, echoing Newt’s analysis of the significance of the cat’s cradle.