Cat's in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon, Little Boy Blue and the Man on the Moon

In the novel "Cat's Cradle", Kurt Vonnegut effectively portrays the bleakness of post-war society by introducing a fictional religion and science while examining their effects on human relationships.

The essence of this story is the fact that it is told from a Bokononist's point of view. Although we are told this on the very first page of the novel, we do not fully understand or grasp it's importance until the last few chapters. Early on in the book we are introduced to certain aspects of Bokononism such as the 'kan-kan' that brings a person to their 'karass' which surrounds their shared 'wampeter'. We can figure out easily at first that the kan-kan is the narrators original idea for a book, and that ice-9 is the wampeter of the karass that the narrator belongs to. Yet it isn't until the end that we figure out who all really was in this karass, and what their ultimate unknowing goal was: the apocalypse.

In the second to last chapter, John, the narrator says "I know what my karass has been up to, Newt. It's been working maybe half a million years to get me up that mountain". This statement explains that in all the time humans have existed, they've been working together as a whole to end that very existence. All scientific progression ultimately led to humanities collapse in this novel. Something which brilliantly reflected the atomic age it was written during.

So, it would seem that religion would serve as a dilution to the disastrous effects of science. But this is not so. Most Judeo-Christian religions are apocalyptic in nature, constantly stressing that final Judgment Day, where God comes down from heaven in a fiery chariot, destroying the known universe. However it turns out that it is not God who killed man, but man who killed man. I imagine this is why a Bokononist would say "Now I will destroy the world" upon committing suicide. Although it was man who killed man, it may have been God's will for man to do so, as Bokonon writes "God was surely trying to kill them, possibly because He was through with them". After all, it was John's karass, a vessel for God's will, that led to the world's end. And so it was justly right, that among the final acts of man, for John to lie down atop the highest mountain in sight, and thumb his nose at You Know Who. A perfect exclamation point on the hilarity of the world. What was the point of it all, if it was all going to end there? What was point of the relationships between fathers and sons? Why did the most beautiful woman in the world show indifference to all men? Where was there any meaning an eloping with a Russian ballerina? And who on earth would have spent all that time making model trains? Where's the cat, and where's the cradle? These will be the questions asked once the world has ended.

Another point I'd like bring up is why the airplane crashed, which all in all caused the end of the world. When I first read the book I thought I had missed something, but upon rereading it, I still don't see what made the plane crash. I wonder if it was the pilot whom Mona was performing boko-maru with, that was flying the plane.

And if Mona really was as beautiful as described in the book, it would be entirely selfish for one man to keep her all to himself, as most religions stress monogamy.