Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle

Plot:

The novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut tells us the story of an everyman named John (a.k.a. Jonah) and his trip to the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, one of the poorest countries on Earth, together with the Hoenikker children, planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed.

Characters:

'The narrator' is a writer named John, also known as Jonah, who describes the events in the book with humorous and sarcastic detail.

Felix Hoenikker is the "Father of the Atom Bomb." Felix Hoenikker was proclaimed one of the smartest scientists on Earth. An eccentric and emotionless man, he is depicted as amoral and apathetic towards anything other than his research.

Dr. Asa Breed is Felix Hoenikker's supervisor. He takes the narrator, John, around Illium and to the General Forge and Foundry Company where the late Felix worked. Later in the tour, Dr. Breed becomes upset with John for "misunderstanding what a scientist is, what a scientist does."

Newton "Newt" Hoenikker: The midget son of famed scientist Felix Hoenikker, and a painter.

Emily Hoenikker is Felix Hoenikker's beautiful wife, who died giving birth to Newt Hoenniker.

Franklin "Frank" Hoenikker is Felix Hoenikker's son, and Major General of San Lorenzo.

Angela Hoenikker Conners is Felix Hoenikker's daughter and a clarinetist.

Bokonon co-founded San Lorenzo (along with Earl McCabe) and created the religion of Bokononism, which he asked McCabe to outlaw. He was born as Lionel Boyd Johnson.

Earl McCabe co-founded San Lorenzo and is a marine deserter who ruled San Lorenzo for many years.

"Papa" Monzano is the ailing dictator of San Lorenzo. He appoints Frank Hoenikker as his successor, and then commits suicide with a piece of Ice-Nine. He is the adopted father of Mona Monzano.

Mona Aamons Monzano is the adopted daughter of "Papa" Monzano, to integrate different races into the harshness of his rule. She is considered "the only beautiful woman on San Lorenzo." She agrees to marry John, but commits suicide with Ice-Nine.

Julian Castle is the multi-millionaire ex-owner of Castle Sugar Cooperation, whom John travels to San Lorenzo to interview. He abandoned his business ventures to set up and operate a humanitarian hospital in the jungle of San Lorenzo.

H. Lowe Crosby is a bicycle manufacturer John meets on a plane to San Lorenzo. His main goal is to move his factory to San Lorenzo, so he can run it with cheap labor.

Hazel Crosby is the wife of H. Lowe Crosby, who asks all the Hoosiers she meets around the globe to call her "Mom."

Philip Castle is the son of Julian Castle, and the operator of the hotel Casa Mona on the island on San Lorenzo.

Horlick Minton is the new American ambassador to San Lorenzo, whom John meets on a plane. He was blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy-era.

Claire Minton is the wife of the new American ambassador to San Lorenzo, and is an index writer.

Analysis: Chapters 23-34

The plaque in Felix's laboratory declaring Felix's "incalculable importance" to humankind is extremely ironic considering the ending of Cat's Cradle. Felix created the seeds of humanity's destruction with ice-nine, so his "importance" to humankind is indeed incalculable. Of course, as Miss Faust states, Felix was not concerned with people at all. He was concerned merely with finding new interesting games to play. He epitomizes the scientist who searches for knowledge with little or no concern for the application of that knowledge. Felix and Asa were essentially selfish. Asa cared more about protecting his valorized status as a scientist than he was with really considering the moral implications of his work. Felix merely wanted to amuse himself with the "real games" provided by the laws of physics.

Miss Faust's conversation with Felix regarding absolute truths emphasizes the theme of science as alien to basic human needs. Of course, humanity has been concerned with finding "truth" for most of its history, whether that truth came in the form of religion, culture, education, or science. Miss Faust offered Felix a religious conception of truth, but Felix, ever the scientist, asked her to define God and love. Vonnegut poses the hypothesis that "truth" alone does not fulfill human needs, whether it is religious or scientific truth.

Because he was a proprietor of a tombstone shop, Martin considered the entire charade of human existence in a different manner than Asa and his colleagues. Asa, Martin, and Felix all worked in the business of death. Asa and Felix's research was used to develop weapons of mass destruction, but they did not directly witness the results of their work. Having directly witnessed death and grief in his profession, Martin's take on human relations and human needs is quite different. He recognized the unhappiness of Felix's children in the aftermath of their mother's death. Felix cared so little for his wife that he didn't bother to buy a marker for her grave. His children took no comfort in having a Nobel-prize-winning physicist for a father. They used his prize money to purchase a monumental marker for their mother's grave. Her death affected them more than Felix's fame.

Martin mocked the prevailing notion that Felix was a harmless, playful innocent. People admired Felix because he didn't care about fame, fortune, or prestige. However, Martin correctly points out that Felix didn't deserve praise for not desiring the things that drive many other human beings. He was selfish in other ways. He got everything he wanted, and he didn't care about using people to get it. When his wife died, he took his daughter out of school to take care of the domestic matters he didn't wish to deal with. As long as his own comfort and peace of mind were provided for, he paid no attention to his children at all. Martin sees Felix's behavior in terms of his children as directly relating to his inability to feel remorse or responsibility for the atomic bomb.

Ironically, the Hoenikker children were just as selfish as their father in some ways. Their suffering and unhappiness aside, they still traded ice-nine to buy happiness. Like their father, they wanted to fulfill their desires, but they did so at great risk to all life on earth. Like their father, they did not care or even consider the awful implications their actions held for the rest of humanity. In their vanity and greed, they sowed the seeds of total destruction.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 1162