Satire and Surrealism in Kurt Vonneguts Cats Cradle :: Kurt Vonnegut Cats Cradle Essays

Satire and Surrealism in Kurt Vonneguts Cats CradleIn 1963, Kurt Vonnegut print his second novel Cats Cradle. It is a distressing yet satirical retrospect of our society and the surrealistic end that is its des small. Through his use of irony and banter he attacks and exposes societys flaws while questioning its intelligence. Nothing is safe from his satiric pen. He attacks science and religion with equal intensity. He creates a novel that has left, an unerasable mark on an entire generation of readers (back cover). Society has constructed many pillars (religion, science) to nourish us from the unknown. Kurt Vonnegut uses satire to tear them down. He attacks religion through his turned religion of Bokononism. It is a religion of shameless lies(5). Newt summarizes religion up best when he comp ars it to the cats place of birth. Religion . . . See the cat? . . . See the cradle? Yet, perhaps the greatest attack on religion comes in the net paragraph of the novel. Bokonon himself says, If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity. . . and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horrible, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who(287). The antithesis of religion is science. It is the provider of terrible truths. Kurt Vonnegut satirical looks at how science will lead to the destruction of mankind. It is the scientist who created the pinch bomb and it is the scientist who created Ice-9, yet the scientist refuses to take responsibility for it. Vonnegut satirically looks at the irresponsibleness of the scientist through Felix Hoenikker who says, Why should I bother with made-up games when there are so many real ones going on?(11). He neer understands that the games he is playing will have a disastrous accomplishment on the human race. This disaster comes in the form of Ice-9. Kurt Vonnegut creates a surrealistic view of the apocalypse. It is a new and strange origination that Jonah returns to after(prenominal) hiding for a week in the bomb shelter. It is a world that could have been found on the canvas of a Salvador Dali painting. The earth is a blue-white pearl, and the sky is filled with worm-like tornadoes while the sun has become a tiny cruel sickly yellow ball (261).