Cats Cradle :: essays research papers

SynopsisCats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut1963Abstract. This novel, filled with a variety of flakey solely all-too-human characters, focuses primarily on the ironic legacy of modern science, which, fit in to Vonnegut, promises mankind progress only only hastens the cataclysmic end of the world.As John, the narrator, researches the background for his book on the atomic bomb, he becomes fascinated by Dr. Felix Hoenikker. Hoenikker is the archetypal scientist, isolated from human contact, dedicated to his work, and completely with show up moral awareness. bid 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 lay waste to 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 wet so soldiers stuck in the mud could li ft themselves out, but this freezing satisfy would continue until every bit of water on earth was move 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 sympathy for Newton, Angela, and frump Hoenikker, frail human beings who are simply incapable of the moral efficiency 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 thereof perpetually threatens its own existence. There are a few compulsory 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 fill in only by rubbing bare feet with another.