Cats Cradle :: essays research papers

SynopsisCats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut1963Abstract. This novel, alter with a variety of bizarre but all-too-human characters, focuses primarily on the wry legacy of modern science, which, according to Vonnegut, promises mankind progress but exactly hastens the cataclysmic end of the world.As John, the narrator, researches the background for his book on the nuclear bomb, he becomes fascinated by Dr. Felix Hoenikker. Hoenikker is the archetypal scientist, isolated from human contact, dedicated to his work, and completely without moral aw areness. Like the childs game cats cradle, which is meant to amuse but all terrifies his son, Hoenikkers scientific games are anything but harmless. Ironically the atomic bomb is non change surface Hoenikkers most devastating creation. Working on the rather clear problem of how to get soldiers out of the mud, he synthesizes "ice-nine," which is both better and worsened than expected It would freeze the irrigate so soldiers stuck in the mud could leaven 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 unfathomable substance is entrusted to his children, who are predictably irresponsible and use the power of ice-nine all for their personal advantage. Vonnegut shows sympathy for Newton, Angela, and Frank Hoenikker, frail human beings who are manifestly incapable of the moral strength and wisdom demanded of them, but this makes the satire even more powerful Mankind 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 insatiate habit of making love only by rubbing destitute feet with another.