Cat's Cradle Analysis

The World According to Kurt Vonnegut
By simply looking at the tile of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle the reader can gain extensive insight into the mindset and mysteries of life that puzzled and excited Vonnegut. Cat's Cradle is a child's game which holds certain significance in the novel for little Newt, the son of the man who created the atomic bomb, and it is often referenced in throughout course of the novel in regards to lies that people tell themselves and others to make them happy. The cat's cradle creates X’s and, “No damn cat, and no damn cradle.” (Vonnegut 166) according to little Newt. Yet, there is harm in such a game that is full of lies and nonsense, it only delights young children and gives them a mesmerizing pastime. Vonnegut's
On the other hand, Vonnegut feels that science, which is not made up of lies, has a consciousness and it is responsible for the destruction it caused and the lives it employees in the uncovering of its mysteries. Likewise, nationalism, which Vonnegut helps to explain through his made up religion of Bokononism, is a complex unnecessary and unrealistic set of conformations that hold people in constrained social groups according to false pretenses. Science is at the forefront of Cat's Cradle and serves to move the novel along and pull the narrator into exciting and unexpected places. At first, Vonnegut asserts that science is over rated and those who understand and dedicate their lives to it are no better than those who choose a different path. By explaining the story of Felix Hoenikker, Vonnegut expresses how such a socially awkward man can be so useless anywhere but in his lab, and, the fact that he is revered by his colleges does nothing for him at the end of his life. All of the “science” that Felix discovers and the creation of the atomic bomb is superficial and overrated when it comes to the things that really matter in life. However, when looking deeper, Vonnegut dismisses the idea that science is above