Cat’s Cradle Pt. 1 (10/17/12)

            So far, Cat’s Cradle is an incredible read. My first impression of the novel was that it made no sense and Kurt Vonnegut was insane. How wrong I was… This book is filled with themes, motifs, parallels and general wisdom. One passage that didn’t particularly strike me as noteworthy at first was the scene in Newt’s letter to John when Frank is making bugs fight in his Mason jar. Vonnegut uses this scene to explain and show Bokononism in the works. In Bokononism, people are arranged into teams called karasses, which unknowingly carry out God’s will. John often elaborates on his karasse, and I am excited to see what it is they are unknowingly carrying out. However, in this particular scene Frank represents God. He is spooning bugs into the Mason jar and then shaking the jar to make them fight. This represents God organizing people into teams, or karasses, and then inserting the stimuli into the situation that makes them carry out his will. Perhaps, Frank’s will is more twisted and morbid than God’s, but perhaps, Vonnegut is hinting at a conclusion that it is not. Newt runs out into the garden after his father scares him, stimulus, and observes Frank’s game. At this point, Vonnegut takes the reader to a broader level. Now the children are in the place of the bugs, and just as frank introduced the appropriate stimulus to make the bugs do his will, God implements stimulus into the situation. In the end, Angela slaps Newt, and Frank punches Angela. Maybe I am overanalyzing this short passage, but given the quality of Cat’s Cradle to this point, I have my doubts.

            Another interesting thematic development I noted was the correlation between ice-nine and the atom bomb and mud and people. I didn’t understand this one until class when Mr. Williams brought mud’s literary meaning as a motif to my attention. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think mud represents people. Water represents life. People are made mostly of water. Mud is just a vesicle for water. Human bodies are only a vesicle for life. In a sense, dirt and a dead body are no different technically. They are both just matter. However, if you add life to a body it becomes a human. If you add water to dirt, it becomes mud. Mud symbolizes the human race. Dr. Hoenikker, creates both the atom bomb and ice-nine. The atom bomb destroys life, and ice-nine will eventually destroy water forever as it spread across the globe and changed all water into a solid. I don’t know the full importance of these correlations yet, but it was fun to think about them! Perhaps, the most important correlation Vonnegut is drawing is that the government controlling atom bombs is no different than the Hoenikker children having the ice-nine in their possession. Both the government in the children have fate of humanity in their hands. They can either withhold the force or utilize it and destroy all life. I think Vonnegut it implying that neither party is qualified to possess such power. This book seemed strange at first, but now that I know what to look out for, I am excited to keep on reading!