Book Review: Cats Cradle
CJ Kwon
Themes
Love: From the very beginning of the book, introducing the Hoenikker family, all the way to the end with Mona and the Bokononists, the concept of love is seen in many different examples and points of view
Death: the numerous characters that populate Cats Cradle all have to deal with death at some point whether it is simply by old age or being poisoned by ice 9.
Religion- While the entire book is driven by the made up religion Bokonon, Vonnegut also touches upon other religious faiths throughout the novel.
Sex- as always in Vonnegut books, sexual imagery is common throughout the story from the cemetery in the beginning to the natives of San Lorenzo.
Relationships- Throughout the entire book Vonnegut seems …show more content…
Ex. “After death, the body turns black—coals to Newcastle in the case of San Lorenzo. When the plague was having everything its own way, the House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle looked like Auschwitz or Buchenwald.”
Metaphor- Ice nine clearly represents the atomic bomb and how weapons of mass destruction are to much of a threat to even be in existence. When the ice 9 falls into the ocean due to a freak accident Vonnegut is commenting on the dangers of nuclear bombs.
Ex. “When it fell, it would freeze into hard little hobnails of ice-nine—and that would be the end of the world! And the end of the interview, too! Good-bye!”
Motif- graves and tombstones are seen on countless occasions throughout the novel and the constant exposure to death is meant to represent the fact that everyone eventually will die as well as to remind the reader of their own mortality.
Ex. “Sleet was still coming down, acid and gray. I thought the old man’s tombstone in all that sleet might photograph pretty well, might even make a good picture for the jacket of The Day the World