Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and The Meaning of Life
Spoiler alert, it means nothing; an analysis
Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle is an enigma wrapped up in beautiful contradiction and sprinkled ever so lightly with the ideals of a man trying to find hope in the hopeless.
It is a novel meant to inspire you to ask the age-old question of “why” about our existence, while at the same time crushing you with it’s the elegantly simple yet painfully abhorrent answer; There is no answer.
It is a crushing yet inspiring story about the human endeavor, and all of the stupidity and misguided searches for meaning and truth, such as, the futile attempts at understanding that scientists seek through their experiments or the irrefutable yet absurd lies sputtered through the tired mouths of preachers of all faiths who themselves don’t fully believe what they are saying.
We are all wrapped up in the idea of finding true happiness through the asking of pertinent questions when, according to Vonnegut, we could just be creating our pertinent realities.
What is the meaning of Life?
Is it finding true love? Could it be knowing all there is to know in the universe? Could it be human progress and the evolution of the human endeavor? The answer to all of these, of course, is no.
Life is a difficult thing to comprehend. To understand how something works, and why it works is something that has kept humanity going on a tirade of darkly humorous misadventures for centuries. The answer to the meaning of life is not quantifiable or fully knowable in any sense, though some believe it could be.
Scientific fact changes all the time, and discoveries are made every day. Science, according to the novel is portrayed as a man playing God, and Frank, one of the main characters exemplifies this postulation.
He tests the world around him to see how things work, and he even creates beautiful works of creative engineering out of scratch, such as the small scale model of a town in the basement of the hobby shop.
Frank is much like his father Felix Hoenikker who is described as a curious child in a man’s body. Oh yes, and also the man that created the atomic bomb.
This is a man that says,
“I wonder about turtles. When they pull in their heads do their spines buckle or contract,”
on his way to create a bomb that will kill over 150,000 people.
The point here is to illustrate that Felix Honikker is not a malevolent character, bent on destroying all of humanity. He is only curious as to the way things worked, and that, in and of itself, can be dangerous.
Scientific pursuits can lead to the most catastrophic outcomes, but not only that, they are in essence, only the illusions of knowledge. Often throughout the book, mankind is seen patting itself on the back for all of the magnificent discoveries and creations it has made.
In his interview with Dr. Breed, the protagonist, John, asks the doctor to elaborate on a statement he made about pure research and within his answer, he says,
“The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.”
Truth and the richness of humankind are simply illusions that mankind creates for itself to keep itself indulged in feelings of self-importance. In other words, science and religion are in the same lake floating on different boats.
It is all just proposed answers to questions, and it all falls within the same boundaries. Julian Castle, a philanthropist in the book puts this idea into brilliant focus in his conversation with Felix’s son Newt and John saying,
“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.”
Consequently, the cat’s cradle, from which the name of this novel is derived, is an impressive symbol of this idea in physical form. It is described in the dictionary as a child’s game in which a loop of string is put around and between the fingers and complex patterns are formed.
The first thing one will notice about this definition is that it is a child’s game. The subjects may change. The discoveries may have higher impacts on the world around them, but humanity’s childlike curiosity remains all the same throughout their lives.
The next thing to address would be the description of the game. A loop of string is put around and between the fingers and complex patterns are formed.
These complex figures are, in essence, what humanity is, so much complication. It is a tangled web of meanings and explanations. We look so hard for the meaning of tangled X’s. We look so hard to find out why this figure is called what it is when in the end, as Newt Honikker observes so astutely in one of the most important passages in the book, we see,
“No damn cat, and no damn cradle.”
What is Bokononism, the “made up” religion in the book, then? If this is all true, what is the point of such a religion, or any religion for that matter? It is a collection of shameless lies, as admitted by the first book of Bokonon itself and explained by John in his warning to the reader,
“Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.”
One might ask in what way the Bokononist religion is a useful one. This can also be explained by the first book of Bokonon after it tells you that none of the things within the book are true.
“Live by the foma (harmless untruths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”
This is what Bokononism is, and postulation of what all religions are. Religion is useful because it makes people happy, and happy people do not need to find the meaning in a world that is just going to disappoint them time and time again.
They do not need to know why the X’s are called a cat’s cradle. They create their meaning because there is no truth, and there is no real meaning. It is more fun to play along with the game then it is to decipher the complex tangles and rules of our existence.
In a way, Newt’s description of his father is the somewhat morally uncomfortableideal,
“He had no use at all for tricks and games and rules that other people made up”
Felix himself explained his thoughts on games saying,
“Why should I bother with made-up games when there are so many real ones going on.”
At the end of the novel, John feels it is his fate to climb to the top of the tallest mountain in the area, and that for millions of years he has been pushed into this very moment by God to climb that mountain and plant a symbol there.
He struggles to find the proper symbol. He struggles to know what he is supposed to bring. The tragic yet inscrutably beautiful thing one is supposed to realize is that there is no proper symbol.
In the end, attempting to find meaning in everything makes you miss the life that is right in front of you. In the first book of Bokonon, God creates the world, and he wants it to be admired telling the humanity he has created,
“I leave it to you to think of one (meaning) for all this.”
As though that is supposed to help anyone at all.
We do not need the proper symbol or the proper meaning, because we create our meaning and live by whatever lies make us happy.
The book ends during the end of the world, which was caused by a creation of Felix Hoenikker’s that turns all water into an ice that freezes and kills people on contact.
John finds Bokonon, the creator of the aptly named Bokononist religion, thinking of what to write as the final sentence in the book of Bokonon.
When he asks how it’s going, Bokonon hands him a piece of paper that reads,
“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 with my history for a pillow, and I would take from 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.”
In the end, what do we have left to do besides chuckle at it all and make the meaning ourselves, however futile and untrue?
