Kurt Vonnegut’s novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five

An Existence based on Forma (harmless untruths)

“No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat’s Cradle is nothing but a band of X’s between someone’s hands and little kid’s look and look at all those X’s… No damn cat and no damn cradle,” Vonnegut writes is his appropriately titled book Cat’s Cradle. A cat’s cradle is a string trick we all grew up learning and seeing, and it is just as Vonnegut described, nothing. Everyday we experience things like a cat’s cradle; we experience insignificant objects, feelings, or idols that we base our life on. We base and change our lives off of things with no real significance. Kurt Vonnegut’s novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five demonstrate the ineptness of the human race to base our life and happiness off of intricate and interwoven lies, or off of a single point of view.

Kurt Vonnegut was born in the United States, Indianapolis, however he was sent to Europe to fight in the “Battle of the Bulge” in December 1944, as a battalion scout. He was taken prisoner and transported to Dresden, Germany; here he was held in an abandoned meat locker below a slaughterhouse. Vonnegut saw humankind at its worst during his involvement in World War II; he witnessed a true massacre within the air raids, total annihilation, of Dresden. What does Vonnegut have to say about a Massacre? “And what do birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-too-weet?’” Vonnegut noticed humans fighting over things with no importance: lies, half-lies, and altered perceptions, articles that only gained importance because people made them worth fighting and killing for.

Cat’s Cradle was written in 1963. This novel is the story of how and why the world ends. The story ironically has the creator of the atomic b...

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...ice going God!”

“Nobody but you could have done it, God. I certainly couldn’t have!”

“I feel very unimportant compared to you, God!”

“The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn’t get to sit up and look around”

“Thank you God!” (Cat’s Cradle 196)

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, comp. Kurt Vonnegut. Philadelphia, Pa.: Chelsea House, 2000. 89-128.

Hile, Kevin, and Diane Telger, eds. Novels for Students. Vol. 3. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1998. 264-271.

Lundquist, James. Kurt Vonnegut. New York, New York: Ungar, 1977. 75.

Vik, Marek. "The Themes of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." Geocities. 11 Mar. 2002. 12 Mar. 2007 .

Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle. New York, New York: Dell Publishing, 1957.

Vonegut, Kurt.. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York, New York: Dell Publishing, 1966.