Cat's Cradle Satire

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Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate in the 20th century with an original religion created by a calypso singer and a vision of the future that is bleak and humorous.
The narrator Jonah is a writer who conducts research on his upcoming book that would describe the relationship between famous people and the day of the dropping of the atomic bomb in WWII. His research on the late Felix Hoenikker, one of the fathers of the nuclear bomb has supposedly created a crystal called ice-nine that when in contact with water could freeze all of Earth. Coincidentally, Jonah meets all three of the Hoenikker children, all previous holders of ice-nine, as he is assigned to San Lorenzo to …show more content…
During Jonah’s visit, the president uses the ice-nine (given by Frank Hoenikker) as a means to kill himself from the suffering of cancer. However in a fatal plane crash to the castle during a ceremony, Papa’s corpse lands in the sea - and the entire globe is covered in ice. Jonah is left with a few survivors during the end of the world, and instead writes “Cat’s Cradle”. A majority of this book emphasizes the ideals of Bokononism, a religion Jonah was introduced within the republic that is based off of harmless untruths. At the end of the novel, he meets up with the legendary Bokonon who suggests that someone should write a book on the history of human stupidity.
The book conveys that science is overrated and the irony in that the atomic bomb and ice-nine are consequences brought by scientific research
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