Cat's Cradle Literary Analysis

People often introduce constructs into their lives to make them more comfortable with the order of things. There isn’t really any complexity behind these constructs but many use them to explain things and to comfort themselves in the face of the unknowable. For example, the concept of Heaven or Hell is, simply due to its nature, unprovable. People believe in it to attempt to understand the truth of death. It helps people feel better about death. Hidden in the title of the book Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, there is a very similar meaning. In the game of Cat’s Cradle one creates a structure with their hands and some string. In the game, this structure does not display an apparent cat or a cradle. A child may pretend to see a cat or a cradle in order to enjoy the game, while others may just see it for what it is, a clump of meaningless X shapes. This is an analogy for something greater. Some people lie about things to make themselves feel better, others simply see the truth, which makes them go mad. …show more content…
In the letter, he talks about how his father had frightened him and how his dad used to play a game called Cat’s Cradle with him. After his dad had tried to play it with him, he “burst into tears. [he] jumped jumped up and [he] ran out of the house as fast as [he] could.”(12). He didn’t understand the game. He never saw a cat or a cradle in the game. However, his dad did, and was very amused by what he saw. He tried to share this amusement with his son. His son did not see a Cat’s Cradle, as he can be found expressing later in the novel, “A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s between some somebody’s hands”(165). The separation between those who pretends see the cradle and those who don’t is expressed from the perspective of someone who sees it for its true form in these two quotes. Newt takes this a step further, by finding the true nature of the

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