Cat's Cradle

people. For some, there must be a reason behind any phenomenon. Events do not happen haphazardly. To others, a higher power is all the reasoning they require. Being able to look up to a higher power give some people comfort. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut questions the authenticity of both institutions through the reaction humanity has on the stances of religion and science. Through Bokononist ideas and the field of science, Vonnegut is able to portray the effects religion and…

a God or a higher power. One of the most outspoken author to question beliefs and religion is Kurt Vonnegut, who in his novel, Cat’s Cradle, shows the detrimental aspects of religion and its impact on a society. Vonnegut highlights the negative impact that religion can have on a society by telling a tale in which putting faith in religion becomes fatal. In Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut created a made up religion called “Bokononism.” It is the religion of the…

In Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut expands on his humanistic ideals and explores religion in order to analyze the universality of the principals various religions teach. Vonnegut’s presentation of science and religion in a satirical setting serves to illustrate humanities need for these institutions and discuss the full extent of their impact on humanity. Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle uses a fictitious religion, Bokonism, to show how a faith gains its greatest following during difficult times. This…

Cat’s Cradle Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle is a satirizing of the Cold War and the possible catastrophic apocalypse brought on by moral ambiguous scientific innovations. One of Bokonon’s sayings explains why Vonnegut favors satire: “Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything” (Vonnegut. 1963, p. 198). World War II brought rapid scientific advances and a state of political tension between the Soviet Union and the United…

believing in something is important but trusting that everything that is being taught is 100% true is hard to prove. People live day by day from those beliefs, so imagine a religion based on lies. Kurt Vonnegut explores this idea in his book Cat's Cradle. In Cat's Cradle he creates a religion called Bokononism which is based on foma. Foma means harmless untruths or lies (Vonnegut 265). But why did he create this religion and what does…

major theme in the book Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is that the things that science can create to help us now may end up being our downfall if we lose our morality. In this book, the invention that Vonnegut uses as an example of an invention used for the wrong purposes is ice nine, which eventually turns the world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland by freezing all the water on earth. It’s original purpose was to stop soldiers from getting stuck in the mud. While Cat’s Cradle provides messages…

“New place, new me.” This is a common expression used when someone has moved from one place to another and is new to their surroundings. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, as the setting of the story changes, his main character, John, changes as well. John is also the narrator of the story and he undergoes many changes as time goes on. The changes are either major or minor depending on what setting he is in. The three main settings of the story is Illium, New York, San Lorenzo, and the plane ride…

Cat’s Cradle is the story of a man’s life leading up to his discovery of the religion Bokononism and the end of the world. He shares with us the specific terminology used by Bokononists and what their meanings are, as well as real world connection to Bokononism. This real world connection to Bokononism is what becomes the ultimate point of the story: the hope of changing one’s perspective and how one copes with oneself and the hopelessness of life and existence. Cat’s Cradle is the story of a…

Cat’s Cradle begins with a call to action, a statement that the readers should “Call me Jonah… [as] my parents did, or nearly did. They called me John” (Vonnegut 11). The novel accounts the actions of John as he works to write his novel, “The Day the World Ended” -- a novel that he never finishes -- which “was to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan” (Vonnegut 11). John also introduces a new, fictional religion…

innocent lives can be lost, his own usually not included. Kurt Vonnegut is a fantastic author that uses satire in order to draw attention and ridicule the flaws of mankind, most of which end in destruction and chaos of some sort. In two of his novels, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, damage and destruction of millions is determined by what can potentially be a single man’s decision. Vonnegut himself experienced the bombing of Dresden, about which he wrote in Slaughterhouse-Five, first hand.…