Comparing Themes in Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five

Vonnegut's Nihilistic Views Exposed in Cat's Cradle If humans strive to fulfill their void, of a lack of meaning in their lives, their folly will blind them from the truth. Kurt Vonnegut portrays his inner emotions and feelings of the insignificance of religion through the characters of his novel, Cat's Cradle. His satiric approach to a subject that many people base their daily existence upon, challenges the readers faith. As people search for a deeper meaning in their lives, the more confused they become.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s eyes, America is being taught that some books and ideas are tantamount to diseases. As a consequence, the humorous, satirical novel Cat’s Cradle has been unjustly challenged in a few areas of the United States. The novel looks at the structures that curb our society, especially in religion and science, and contains an educational value that is paramount in correlation to its suggestive themes. Therefore, despite Cat’s Cradle’s minor suggestive content, including religious satire and mature themes, the book possesses important concepts that should not be overshadowed by these negligible reasons. It is puzzling how the novel received bans for such irrational conclusions.

Vonnegut is Kilgore Trout in the novel. The first line of the novel is “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time"(23). By using the word "unstuck", Vonnegut implies that Billy has now become free. Consequently, Vonnegut's narrative, as well as Billy,

The point of view that Slaughterhouse-Five is written from also affects the way the reader fells about time after reading the novel. Since the story is narrated by a omniscient being that is everywhere with Billy Pilgrim, the reader gets a first hand account of every event in his life. Also Billy is very relaxed and accepting all things around him. A good example of this is Billy's habit of following every death with "so it goes". (Vonnegut 69) The repetition of this phrase not only de-emphasizes death, but also helps Vonnegut assert control over the readers response after a death. (Dawley 2) The way Billy

Have you ever felt like you could be in 2 places at once? The Tralfamadorians have the free will to go fourth dimensional view of their daily lives. It comforts Billy to think that time is totally predetermined and unchangeable and there is no free will.

Kurt Vonnegut writes pessimistic novels, or at least he did back in the sixties. Between Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut paints a cynical and satirical picture of the degradation of society using distortion as the primary means to express himself. In Cat's Cradle, the reader is confronted with the story of the narrator, John, as he attempts to gather material to write a book on the human aspect of the day Japan was bombed. As the

It is expected for arguments to arise when writing about controversial topics. Many times the meaning of a book is not as obvious as the author intended, which may lead to problems. Other times, books are challenged because they contain sexual or inappropriate material. When Kurt Vonnegut released Slaughterhouse-Five critics were quick to judge his peculiar way of writing. Although Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five was oftentimes misunderstood, interpreted as inappropriate, and judged for the peculiar point of view, critics seem to appreciate and accept one aspect of it: the structure of the book.

“Fate is a misconception, it's only a cover-up for the fact you don't have control over your own life.” –Anonymous. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-five, an optometrist named Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time uncontrollably and constantly travels between his past, present, and future. Since Pilgrim is unable to control his time warps, he is forced to re-live agonizing moments such as watching his wartime friend Edgar Derby executed for stealing or going through the Dresden bombing repeatedly. However, he is also able to visit pleasant moments like speaking as president in front of the Lions club or his honeymoon with his wife, Valencia. Vonnegut’s use of repetition and vision of war, time and death are crucial to Pilgrim as he

Throughout the plot of Slaughterhouse-Five, the idea of time is thrown around in several ways. In the beginning of the story, Vonnegut introduces his readers to Billy Pilgrim, the main character of the story who has the ability to travel to different moments of his life without knowing

These teachings about time include, “All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist” and how “[Tralfamadorians] can see how permanent all the moments are” (Vonnegut 27). Tralfamadorians, as designed by Vonnegut, explain to Billy a new way to view time and “enlighten” Billy. This enlightenment leads to, “It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever” and how, “when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral”(Vonnegut 27). Billy is being told that nothing matters, that everyone is, “trapped in the amber of this moment.

”(Vonnegut 63). This passage, talking about Billy traveling back in time to World War II, refers to the lack of meaning of time in the book. The book jumps around in time and continually just talks about random events that relate to Billy Pilgrim. The book also debunks the Modernist idea that all problems can be solved with new inventions. Responding to Billy’s question about how the Universe ends, the Tralfamadorians reply “We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers.”(117 ).

His works are significantly influenced by that genre, but contain strikingly relevant commentaries about contemporary American society which set him apart from other science-fiction writers. His use of science fiction draws a humorous contrast between the all-important significance of the nature of the universe and of reality, and the insignificance of human life and society. All of his works emphasize the enormous forces acting on his characters, not the least of which is fate. As his writing progressed and matured, this stylistic nuance became more and more evident. In his book Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut describes his own style by means of Tralfamadorians, an alien race for whom time is nonexistent, and whose literature reflects this:

Most science fiction novels and other novels that incorporate “out of this world ideas” have long been regarded as not true forms of literature. This is due to the nature that the majority of Sci-Fi novels are written for entertainment purpose alone and do not provide much thought and discussion. Despite this, Kurt Vonnegut is today known for writing books that have multiple levels and require the reader to think about what he or she just read. In his semi autobiographical novel, Slaughter House Five, Vonnegut is able to write about events that he experienced during World War 2 while introducing topics of a science fiction novel such as aliens and time travel. Vonnegut uses these science fiction elements to tell a story that has literary merit

“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

Kurt Vonnegut takes a different approach to writing a captivating war story that reaches the readers. Slaughterhouse-Five is a strange approach on picturing the horrors of the Dresden bombing, Vonnegut reaches his message across by his odd, unconventional writing style throughout the book. In many ways Vonnegut openly breaks the conventional rules of storytelling by using approaches that are unsuspected and make the reader think. Vonnegut as a writer wanted to change the reader's point of view, through this highly acclaimed novel his weird plot connects to the devastating events that he cannot seem to overpass.