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Transcript

See the cat? See the cradle?

Plot

Cat's Cradle

  • Jonah (John) writing a book on what important Americans were doing when Hiroshima was bombed
  • Felix Hoenikker - co-creator of nuclear bomb
  • Jonah discovers ice-nine (freezes all water on Earth)
  • sent to San Lorenzo; meets Julian Castle, Crosbys, Mintons, Hoenikker children, and others
  • discovers Bokononism
  • "Papa" Monzano dying of cancer, Frank H is his successor but passes it onto Jonah (who accepts so he can marry Mona)
  • "Papa" suicides with ice-nine, Hoenikker children are found guilty of giving their pieces away for personal benefit
  • castle destroyed in accident, "Papa" falls into the sea, ice-nine apocalypse
  • Jonah doesn't know what to do anymore, meets Bokonon who suggests someone should write a book on the history of human stupidity

Context

  • Wealthy father, urged to study biochemistry at Cornell, drawn to writing
  • drafted into the US Army
  • mother's suicide
  • Battle of the Bulge
  • bombing of Dresden
  • master's thesis rejected at University of Chicago - the thesis WAS Cat's Cradle
  • worked at General Electric
  • "pure research"
  • apathetic scientists

Kurt Vonnegut

Characters

Lauren Cohen & Sarah Starr

Final Scene

Genre

The last sentence of the Books of Bokonon:

"If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back and take fro the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who" (287)

  • Satire
  • humor, irony, exaggeration, ridicule
  • intends to improve humanity by criticizing follies and foibles
  • commentary on society
  • Science Fiction
  • based on scientific principles/tech
  • predictions about life in the future
  • John/Jonah - protagonist, author
  • Bokonon - creator of Bokononism
  • McCabe - found San Lorenzo with Bokonon, outlawed the new religion to make it more exciting
  • Felix Hoenikker - creator of ice-nine, "pure research" scientist
  • Hoenikker children - give away their pieces of ice-nine
  • "Papa" Monzano - dictator of San Lorenzo, kills himself with ice-nine
  • Mona - Jonah's love interest; forbidden
  • Asa Breed - Felix's supervisor
  • Julian & Philip Castle- essentially own San Lorenzo
  • Crosbys - imperialism
  • Mintons - ambassadors, consequences of patriotism/nationalism
  • Sherman Krebbs- National Chairman of Poets and Painters for Immediate Nuclear War, wrecks Jonah's apartment
  • Lyman Enders Knowles- insane elevator operator at General Forge and Foundry who wonders why scientists re-search for things

So did we really just read a history of human stupidity??

Cat's Cradle as a book is a satire showing how STUPID humans are.

WE JUST READ A HISTORY OF HUMAN STUPIDITY!

BUT!

"Nothing in this book is true"!!!!!!

What!?

Symbols

  • Ice-nine - the atomic bomb, the end of the world, destructive power of science
  • The Stone Angel - things loose their original meaning over time and take on another meaning
  • Ants/Frank's Ant Farm - The next race to do re-search
  • The House of Hope and Mercy - false hope
  • Hundred Martyrs to Democracy - unification through lies, foma
  • Boku-maru - intimate soul-to-soul or sole-to-sole connection

The Cat's Cradle - nothing in the world makes sense

Bokononist Words

  • Karass=a group of people that works towards the same purpose, defined by G-d, without ever learning what they're doing
  • Foma=harmless untruths
  • Granfalloon=a group of people who imagine that they have a connection that does not exist, false karass. Example: Hoosiers
  • Wampeter=central purpose of a karass
  • Sinookas=the tendrils of one's life
  • Stuppa=a fogbound child, an idiot
  • Wrang-wrang=someone who steers a Bokononist away from a line of speculation by reducing that line to absurdity
  • "Busy, busy, busy"=What Bokononists say when they don't want to think about something complicated

Quotes

Themes

"Nothing in this book is true" (Epigraph)

"Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy" (Epigraph)

"Everything I am about to tell you are shameless lies" (5) -Bokonon

"Call me Jonah" (1)

"pure research ... men are paid to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that" (41)

"New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become" (41)

"Science is magic that works" (218)

"The Fourteenth Book is entitled, 'What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?' ... 'Nothing'" (245)

"Now I will destroy the whole world"

"No damn cat, no damn cradle"

  • Religions are all lies
  • Science is futile, destructive, and lacking in compassion
  • People's desires to do forbidden things
  • Dynamic Tension
  • "Tyranny with a Difference"
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