99 pages • 3 hours read
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.Cat's Cradle
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Risks and Limitations of Scientific Inquiry
Taking the work of Dr. Hoenikker as a case in point, Vonnegut explores the sometimes-tenuous relationship between scientific progress and human welfare, including the risks and limitations that accompany scientific inquiry.
Vonnegut highlights the limitations associated with scientific inquiry during John’s interviews and tours in Ilium, New York, where Dr. Hoenikker lived. These limitations are not on the amount or type of revolutionary scientific progress that can be made; rather, the limitations apply to the potential for science to offer meaningful solutions to human problems and questions, including ethical and moral dilemmas. In fact, Dr. Hoenikker considers his work to be so far removed from such concerns that he asks, “What is God? What is love?” one on occasion (55), as well as “What is sin?” on another (17). Dr. Hoenikker’s outlook is essentially materialist; if something cannot be measured and tested, it might as well not exist. And his views are hardly unique; as a representative administrator, Dr. Breed also touts the pursuit of knowledge above all else. Those like Dr. Breed’s son, who develops ethical qualms, tend to quit.
On the other end of the spectrum are people like the bartender and Sandra, who have little knowledge of or interest in the latest scientific research. Notably, both of them work in fields that have to do with basic instincts and drives: the bartender quenches thirst while Sandra is a sex worker. As far as they’re concerned, there is little that science can tell them that would substantially alter their lives and that they haven’t already figured out through experience. To suggest that such views are nearly universal, Vonnegut presents a woman in the parking lot of General Forge and Foundry who “hated people who thought too much” as “an appropriate representative for almost all mankind” (33).
Added to the perceived irrelevance of certain types of research are the real risks that such research poses, particularly when the results of research are used for political purposes. With the legacy of the atomic bomb looming in the background, Vonnegut presents ice-nine as the logical next step in human scientific progression. Created to solve a small problem (muddy terrain), ice-nine ends up creating many more problems than it solves, as the world’s ecology is permanently altered, suggesting that human technology can be used not only to harm other people but also damage the environment. Overall, with the added context of the cat’s cradle as a symbol, Vonnegut questions the common assumption that scientific progress always enhances human welfare and suggests that ethical guardrails must be implemented and maintained to prevent disaster.
The Usefulness of Religion
Early on, John offers what he calls a “Bokononist warning” about his text: “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either” (5-6). Using the fictional religion of Bokononism as both a parody and example of religion, Vonnegut explores the potential for religion to serve useful social purposes, independent of its truthfulness or lack thereof.
Central to Bokononism is a belief in God’s purposes and direction. John comes to believe that he is part of a karass, a group of people who fulfill God’s purposes without even realizing. His belief that God is watching over him takes root when he sees his own family name carved in the statue of the stone angel at Marvin’s monument shop. He interprets this as a sign that “God Almighty knew all about me, after all, that God Almighty had some pretty elaborate plans for me” (69). It should be noted that John’s surname is not actually given in the novel. By noting that John’s surname is on the monument but failing to actually tell the reader what that surname is despite its revelatory nature allows John to take on the role of an everyman, a character who represents humankind in general. John then illustrates how anyone can be swayed by religious ideas, especially when they offer comfort for personal concerns. As John accepts Bokononism, his newfound sense of purpose invigorates and motivates him, especially compared to his previous jaded outlook.
Vonnegut also considers the effects of religion on a larger scale. In San Lorenzo, Bokononism functions as a competing and outlawed influence on the government, which officially endorses science and Christianity. McCabe and Bokonon established the arrangement after failing to improve life on the island through political or economic means. Secretly, everyone practices Bokononism, even Papa Monzano. The lyrics to the national anthem, which include the phrase, “Oh, ours is a land / Where the living is grand” (138), are written by Bokonon. Through his writings composed of what he admits to be lies, Bokonon gives the people of San Lorenzo a way to make sense of their lives and to feel that they are meaningful. As John learns, the only thing Bokononism holds sacred is people. It is with that understanding and intention that Dr. von Koenigswald agrees to offer Papa Monzano the Bokononist last rites, since he will “do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it’s unscientific” (219).
It is this humanistic element of religion that Vonnegut admires and identifies as superior to a certain kind of dry, detached, scientific inquiry. Of course, Bokononism comes with its own set of limitations, including its reactive nature: Rather than leading his followers to make proactive, positive changes, Bokonon tends simply to console them in the midst of hardship. At the climax of the novel, Bokonon even advises his followers to willingly take ice-nine to comply with God’s apparent death wish for them. As his final advice that John thumb his nose at God reveals, however, Bokonon is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation. Overall, then, Vonnegut finds that religions like Bokononism can serve a meaningful purpose in helping people cope with hardship, though they are ill-equipped to address the underlying factors directly.
The Persistence of Human Foolishness
Throughout the novel, Vonnegut presents various examples of human foolishness leading to detrimental outcomes, despite warnings to the contrary.
One category of poor judgment centers on the Bokononist concept of a granfalloon, which John defines as “a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done” (91). Alongside examples of political parties and companies, John stresses that “any nation, anytime, anywhere” is also a granfalloon (92). This leads naturally into Vonnegut’s dissection of nationalism and patriotism, particularly in an American context. Here, he contrasts the thoughtfulness and insight of the Mintons with the brashness and arrogance of the Crosbys; so confident are the Crosbys in their privileged status as Americans that they instinctively shout “American! American!” in the natural disasters that follow the release of ice-nine, “as though tornadoes were interested in the granfalloons to which their victims belonged” (262).
By contrast, Claire Minton laments the fact that some “Americans couldn’t imagine what it was like to be something else, to be something else and proud of it” (97). Similarly, Horlick critiques the military celebrations to mark the deaths of soldiers since such displays reinforce the attitudes that led to their deaths. Vonnegut thus suggests that, by inhibiting empathy, granfalloons tend to cause conflict over time. This makes it even more likely that new technologies will be misused, as American and Soviet efforts to obtain ice-nine illustrate.
Vonnegut also considers the human tendency to repeat the mistakes of the past, even though historical records warn against them. Ice-nine itself is presented as an extension of the factors that influenced the development of the atomic bomb. John’s decision to write about “what had gone wrong—where and how” comes with the qualifier, “in case anyone was interested” (271). With the novel’s metafictional elements in mind, this reads as a disappointed acknowledgment that many, maybe even most, people are not interested in learning from the past.
If Vonnegut’s view of human nature is somewhat cynical, there are a few counterexamples suggesting change is possible. Julian Castle and Dr. von Koenigswald both have made poor choices and caused damage to others in the past, but they spend the latter parts of their lives performing charitable work. However, it is much easier to prevent wrongdoing than it is to make up for it after the fact; Julian estimates that Dr. von Koenigswald would have to keep working until the year 3010 to save as many people as he allowed to die in a concentration camp during World War II. Papa Monzano’s release of ice-nine underlines the same point: Even a single wayward or foolish person can cause great damage.
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