Cats Cradle :: essays research papers

SynopsisCats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut1963Abstract. This novel, filled with a variety of bizarre but all-too-human characters, focuses primarily on the ironic legacy of modern science, which, according to Vonnegut, promises worldly concern progress but only hastens the cataclysmic end of the world.As John, the narrator, researches the background for his book on the atomic joker, he becomes fascinated by Dr. Felix Hoenikker. Hoenikker is the archetypal scientist, insulate from human contact, dedicated to his work, and completely without moral awareness. Like the childs game cats cradle, which is meant to amuse but only terrifies his son, Hoenikkers scientific games are anything but harmless. Ironically the atomic bomb is not even Hoenikkers most devastating creation. Working on the rather innocuous problem of how to get soldiers out of the mud, he synthesizes "ice-nine," which is both better and worse than expected It would freeze the water so soldiers stuck in the mud coul d lift themselves out, but this freezing action would continue until every bit of water on earth was turned into solid ice-nine. At his death Hoenikkers secret substance is entrusted to his children, who are predictably irresponsible and use the power of ice-nine only for their personal advantage. Vonnegut shows munificence for Newton, Angela, and Frank Hoenikker, frail human beings who are simply incapable of the moral strength and wisdom demanded of them, but this makes the satire even more powerful homo continually refuses to acknowledge what may be called its terminal stupidity and therefore perpetually threatens its own existence. There are a few positive forces in the novel, but each is undermined. Love, for example, is presented as a worthy but impossible, even comical ideal, symbolized by Mona Monzano and her insatiable habit of making love only by rubbing bare feet with another.