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