Man got to Tell Himself he Understand

Cat's Cradle is a great book and I recommend it to anyone who considers reading it. There is a dominant religion on the island of San Lorenzo. Of the many poems involved in the system, one particular line does a good job of summarizing much of the content of the book. The poem is concluded: "Man got to tell himself he understand" (182). Along with the themes from last time, we can pair the idea of self-contentment through voluntary ignorance with resignation with

• Sure they call it something fancy, but that's not what it is at all 

and 

• It took five minutes to make your room a mess, and you're going to spend three hours cleaning it now

to include

• Life is a pretty complicated thing and it is human nature to give up on understanding

The final theme is particularly strong. The meaning is gleaned from the analogy drawn implicitly between tigers resting their bodies and humans resting their questioning. Vonnegut says that "Tiger got to hunt... Man got to sit and wonder... Tiger got to sleep... Man got to tell himself he understand" (182). I interpret the comparison as an argument that questioning is human nature just as tigers hunting is and that it is also inevitable, just as a tiger can't avoid sleeping, to exhaust our questions for a time so we shouldn't fear it. This is comforting, but also faintly troubling. It feels as though Vonnegut is trying to sedate the reader into a state of acceptance.

The symbol of ice-nine ended up differently than I predicted. The weapon did not destroy the world, only individual characters. This develops the symbol by including the demonstration that the weapon could have ruined the entire world very quickly, but ruined only individuals. The ice was developed by the Manhattan Project, the same that developed the first weapons of mass destruction, and it can be applied to the situation to reveal that Vonnegut thought that the makers of the atom bomb have not yet exterminated all life, but have succeeded in corrupting themselves with power and evil.

Keeping Nabakov in mind, I read with impartiality. Vonnegut provided a dictionary himself, albeit completely anecdotally, to help with words like boku-maru and Pabu. Perrine's information was not as helpful as other information because there was a good deal of concrete meaning in the book that could be relied on. Prose's advocation of close reading certainly came in handy because the book has many characters that appear and reappear and ought to be kept track of. Many of the main ideas, though, were clearly indicated by Vonnegut, saving me some trouble.

The reasoning for my recommendation of the book is that it is very accessible to all readers and has an intriguing plot. The scientists in the great throngs that flock to my blog will realize that there are plenty of treasures strewn throughout the book. These include a molecular explanation of a miracle substance. The book feels strange at times. Although there is certainly an element of intended discomfort by the author such as when Frank Hoenikker admits that the reason he "fell asleep all the time in high school" was because he "was screwing Jack's wife every day" in Jack's Hobby Shop (200), there are deeper regions that are part of the mood of the book. The island of San Lorenzo is in the Caribbean but it is quite the opposite of what one would expect of a resort location. There are a lot of things that are hard to look at. If you like looking into the sun, you'll love Cat's Cradle.

Also for the scientists among the great throngs that flock to my blog like complex ions in solution, I analyze the thermodynamics of the ice-nine mechanism. The formation of a very densely packed atomic structure ( packing efficiency > 74% = (16/3)pi*r^3/8^(3/2)r^3 ) would release high amounts of energy as far closer distances between water molecules are reached. This will make the ΔH of fusion highly endothermic, meaning that it is extremely hard to thaw the ice. Conversely, the ice-nine has a ΔH of freezing that is highly exothermic because of the amount of energy gained by allowing the particles to come closer together as a solid. This means that as you freeze a volume of water with ice-nine, the surroundings will absorb the energy and get very hot. The water would boil until it finished freezing. The death experienced by "Papa" Monzano and other characters in the book who dies from contact with the ice would be thoroughly unpleasant. Before any part of you froze, what isn't water would be charred completely.

This has been a complete thermodynamic analysis of ice-nine as well as the only blog post this quarter to use the letter Δ.

The book's complete and most efficient means of analysis and communication would require 287 words to communicate.

Just Pretend You Understand

San Lorenzo still has many surprises for the characters of Cat's Cradle. Newt Hoenikker begins to criticize the world through his tangled lens, a dictator is disfigured, and a lament on descent is issued. Turns out, Angela can play the clarinet very well when accompanied by a piano record. "Just pretend you understand", says Julian Castle when the narrator exclaims that life is complicated.

Newt makes a habit of asking the narrator "See the cat? See the cradle?" (179). This is said in a total of three contexts in close proximity. The first is when Newt describes his painting, the second is when Newt informs the narrator that Angela's "Great Marriage" was quite the opposite, and the third was when Julian Castle mentions religion and Newt criticizes that "Bokonon is adding things every day" (183). This may be a protrusion of the author's demeanor through the pages.

"Papa" Monzano is the residential dictator of the sad, little island. After the arrival of the Narrator, however, the ruler is suddenly overcome by sickness. It is "the effect of drugs" according to Newt (185). Monzano has severe cancer. Foster instructs the reader to look for details in a character's health that could symbolize a character trait. It seems that the disease is used to show the reader the atrophy that the dictator is causing on the island by giving the ruler the same ailment, but personified.

An appearance that may seem random is made by Dr. Schitler von Koenigswald, a medical doctor at the House of Hope and Mercy. The doctor "was a camp physician at Auschwitz for six... years" (186). The irony is deepened by Julian Castle when he declares that if "he keeps going at his present rate... the number of people he's saved will equal the number of people he let die - in the year 3010" (187). Foster tells us that instances of irony are usually not just little jokes, but not jokes at all. When Vonnegut engages characters in a conversation about the disproportionate time and resources for atonement, he unveils a theme. Vonnegut is worried about how much good is needed to offset a great amount of bad wrought in a short frenzy. Now, other patterns become clear. The evil of conquest, Spanish or otherwise, cannot be reversed regardless of the future plans for aid. Dwarfism, a pattern that follows the narrator to no end with Newt and other characters, is a defining characteristic that cannot be changed. The recurrence of corporate misbehavior and cheating that reduced a genius to a humble life, killed his wife, and developed weapons that would wreck beyond salvation. Also, a sense of impending doom is upon the reader. Is there a final evil deed related to the mysterious weapon that the Hoenikkers split that cannot be atoned for?

Thus far, it seems that the two main themes in this book can be summarized as:

• Sure they call it something fancy, but that's not what it is at all

and

• It took five minutes to make your room a mess, and you're going to spend three hours cleaning it now

No Damn Cat, and No Damn Cradle

The next phase of Vonnegut's book concerns the narrator's adventures in San Lorenzo, the obscure Caribbean island that is home to Bokononism, three skyscrapers, one modern hospital, one hundred fewer martyrs for democracy, and a dictator. It is decided by the narrator that "God, in His Infinite Wisdom, had made the island worthless" (125). Vonnegut uses the opportunity to make several statements including an accusation of terrible crime upon the Spaniards and other conquerors, a ridicule of inquisition, the announcement of the world's insubstantiality and a lament of the fickle history of tradition as exemplified by the cat's cradle. This post is an exploration of Vonnegut's messages in this part of the book.

Castle Sugar is a company that controlled the island for about forty years before WWII. They abused the native population, seizing ninety percent of the island's infertile and dead land in a neoliberalist frenzy, seeking a haven free from taxation. The islanders have endured many hardships before, however. The Spaniards "burned a few natives for entertainment and heresy, and sailed on" (125). This is a direct satirical assertion by Vonnegut on the subject of colonization and conquest. His demonization of the Spaniards reflects reality and invokes within the reader a sense of deep crime. His addition of heresy as a secondary crime, an afterthought to the entertainment of the Spaniards, declares slyly that accusations of heresy were used by the Spaniards for entertainment. The Spanish were not alone in their prosecution, though. Of one thousand and four hundred dead natives who helped build the island's fort, "about half are said to have been executed in public for substandard zeal" (126).

The meeting of the narrator with his interviewee presents an interesting symbol as the Hoenikker family reunites on the haunted island. It is at the house of the hospital's architect where the meeting is held. Above a waterfall on the cantilevered deck at night, he narrator examines a painting beside the snoozing artist. Vonnegut describes for us quite vividly the masterpiece: "It consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spider's web" (164). This is incredibly rich to decompose and analyse but Vonnegut steps in front and attacks it for us, as he is wont to do. He continues to add "I wondered if they might be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry"  (164). his is the latest in a set of injections that appear throughout the book. Perhaps Vonnegut is an author with low self esteem who seeks immediate attention for his ideas.

The configuration of a "cat's cradle" about the hands

Another habit of the author's is to reduce circuitous assertions and complex themes into brief and grave statements that are employed to convey the ideas. These take some getting used to, but are a comfortable addition to the writing style of Vonnegut as it accommodates the truncating and wild path of the plot. Of these statements, Newt's declaration that there is "No damn cat, and no damn cradle" comes as only a small shock after the immediate foreshadowing concerning the history of the "crazy" game and insists that there is no deeper meaning in many traditions (166). This vaguely nihilistic mindset is amplified incredibly by Julian Castle, disgruntled heir to the failed sugar company, who screams "So this is a picture of the meaninglessness of it all? I couldn't agree more!" and throws the painting off of a wet cliff (168). These instances are incredible as they build an atmosphere for Vonnegut's book. An atmosphere of possibility and fantasy.

Enter the Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is a friendly, whimsical investigation into the complexity of interpersonal interactions in modern society. Much like the mythical ice-nine, communications between the odd characters in Vonnegut's tale are connected on a level far deeper than instances in the real world. 

Ice-nine is the hypothetical arrangement of water particles into an unnaturally dense configuration that would resist attempts to melt the ice. This substance was investigated, and produced, in the story to solve the United States Marines' two-hundred-year-old issue of mud. No more water means no more mud. In the story, the ice would have the capacity to get any water in contact with it to freeze at room temperature, turning all drinkable water in the world to ice. In reality, there are fifteen different types of solid water. This is due to both the basic structure of the molecule and the varying conditions that are present in our environment. At ten-thousand times the normal pressure of the air and -278 degrees Fahrenheit, a real ninth ice structure is formed. This does not share the same mythic properties as Vonnegut's.

A diagram showing the conditions that form different types of ice

Like molecules in the tight ice, the people of Vonnegut's creation are never isolated. Particles that form ice are very closely packed and are forced to interact with many others in their molecular neighborhood. As an example of the incredible density of relevant characters, on the plane flight to San Lorenzo were two children of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the subject of the book, two statesmen of the narrator named Hazel and Lowe Crosby, a couple of bike manufacturers from Evanston, Illinois, and a picture of Monz Aamons Monzano, the narrator's true love. All these characters tug at all other characters with their  influence, mimicking 

Much like the cold, huddled masses present in ice-nine, the Cold War froze the surface of the world. Perhaps the war-seasoned author had a bold statement to make about the role of atomic weapons in the end of the world. It is quite clear from the beginning that the book concerns atomic weapons, but unexpected that Vonnegurt would claim that the ultimate end would come by frigid relations between nations. The possibility that such an end - a massive freeze - could happen seems unrealistic, and so Vonnegut adopts a humorous and fantastic tone to fit.

The real ninth form of ice: less dense and far less exciting
Discovered by Whalley et al. in 1968

Vonnegut's brother was a physical chemist with a doctorate from the Massachusetts institute of Technology. His brother studied ice formation, most likely the source of inspiration for the little story.

Many instances of Thomas Foster's literature-reading criteria are present in the novel. In fact, they seem very meticulously set up. Of course every act of an author is strictly intentional, but it is a surprise nonetheless the bold and direct way the narrator shovels these archetypes into our hands. On one such incident, the narrator remarks about the gravity of Bokonon's landing on an island. The text details the character "emerging naked from salt water. It was a rebirth for him"(Vonnegut 107). I am certain that no more direct extension of Foster's principles has ever been made. 

This is the normal crystal structure of ice
The unit Å is equal to 10 x 10^-10 meters
Image from the Carnegie Mellon School
of Computer Science

In another case, the narrator dwells considerably on a recurring phrase in a newspaper article. He announces that "the phrase reeked of cannibalism" and that "'Papa' plainly felt that frank was a chunk of the old man's magic meat"(Vonnegut 82).Although vampire is tempting, the possibility of a zombie archetype is more plausible. Blood is he fodder of vampires, but the aforementioned "magic meat" is quite different. The fictional Island of San Lorenzo is in the Caribbean the birthplace of zombie folklore. Also, the idea of resurrection is present in the novel in regard to the immediate and unpredictable reappearance of one of Dr. Hoenikker's children after they are presumed dead. Ice-nine acts like a wave of the zombie apocalypse, permanently immobilizing and altering the world's water population.