Kurt Vonnegut Jr.s Cats Cradle Essay -- Cats Cradle Vonnegut Essays

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Cat's Cradle In the early sixties, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. released his candidly fantastical novel, Cat's Cradle. Within the text an entire religious sect, called Bokononism is born; a religion built on lies, absurdity, and irony. The narrator of Cat's Cradle is Jonah, a freelance writer who characterizes Bokononism as being, "free form as an amoeba" (Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 3). It is boundless and unpredictable as the unconscious itself. Bokonon lives on the impoverished island of San Lorenzo where he spends his days scribing poetic calypsos in the books of Bokonon. Jonah arrives on the same island in his pursuit of Frank Hoenniker, the military commander and son of the eccentric Dr. Hoenniker, who invents a substance capable of freezing the world over in seconds called ice-nine. When San Lorenzo's totalitarian ruler, Papa Monzano, passes away—infecting the oceans with ice-nine in the process—Frank transfers his inherited power to Jonah. Even within this skeletal sketch of the novel, one can see that the absurdity and humor within the religion of Bokonon is imposed on the plot itself, creating a world of comedic fantasy in which the reading audience can partake. In light of this, Cat's Cradle exemplifies imagination and play, thus correlating with the theory Freud illustrates in the essay "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming," which emphasizes the importance of fantasy to the creative writer and its therapeutic value for the audience. At the most fundamental level, even the title of the novel provides a strong example of the importance of play to Vonnegut. Cat's cradle is a childrenÕs game of weaving yarn between the fingers whereby the player forms various patterns. To see beyond what exists (or in Vonnegut's w... ...ite 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. (Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 287) Bokononism's refreshing defiance of restraint and reality with the creative power of playful imagination is a precise illumination of the therapeutic value Freud christens as inherent in literature. Works Cited Freud, Sigmund. "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming." Freud Reader, Edited by Peter Gay. New York, NY: Norton and Company Inc., 1989. Freud, Sigmund. "On Dreams." Freud Reader, Edited by Peter Gay. New York, NY: Norton and Company Inc., 1989. Vonnegut, Kurt. A Man without a Country. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005. Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle. New York, NY: Delta Books, 1963. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York, NY: Random House, 1969.