After viewing the episode of Supernatural and reading the first half of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle the question arose, what is fate? What determines fate? Many believe events in life are scripted from the moment you are born, until the day it is over. But are the events that are scripted and set in stone like Supernatural, or are they events determined by our own free will. In the case of Sam and Dean, although their destiny is written through a prophet, they have every right to act out of routine and break off from the predictions that are written. However, even when they try to break, for example the burger in the lunch place, it always comes back around full circle and they end up doing what they are destined to do. I wonder if the same happens to us as characters in society even without knowing what our future holds. (Of course implying that we do have a scripted path written out for us).
I personally found the connection between narrators and prophets to be very interesting. Unfortunately, while I was reading Cat’s Cradle I did not become familiar with the reference. Between the Bokononist beliefs in Vonnegut’s novel and the prophet, angel, and devil references in Supernatural it is impossible to ignore the religious presence. It is difficult to understand the religious references in Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle is because it is possible to read the book straight through without really thinking about the Bokononism too much in depth because the story keeps rolling. My question that I have is, why does Vonnegut decide to include this fictional religion in the book?
Since I am very superstitious, I do believe that everything does happen for a reason. For example, if I began writing this blog post a minute later, I probably would not have written about the same things, or finished in time to grab lunch at commons at 11:30 and run into somebody I went to high school with; small world.
In this blog post there were not points to be proven, but my questions remained unanswered. What is the importance of religion in Cat’s Cradle and Supernatural? What exactly is the definition of fate, and what determines one’s fate?
That is a very good point to bring up and compare the two with. There always seems to be a struggle in human history of understanding the bigger forces at work. We don't know what determines our fate. That can be a scary thing to think about, because you don't know if your actions are your own or you're being manipulated without knowing. Do things happen for a reason? Is it all coincidence?
ReplyDeleteOr is this all our imagination? O.O
Have you ever felt a "pull" or "push" in your life? For example, have you sometimes felt that opportunities opened up a bit too easily or if chance encounters happened a bit too frequently? I don't brush uncanny events off as coincidence, but at the same time, I don't feel comfortable with the notion of fate. Even if fate reigns over us, I like to believe that I have control over my actions, over my existence. I want to believe that I am the author of my story instead of being just a character.
ReplyDeleteI find the fictional religion to be amazingly important because of what it is saying about religion as a whole. It shows how difficult religion can be and how it can do more harm than good in some instances. Aside from that, I agree whole heartedly with your comments on fate. There are never ending questions that we can sit around and discuss, argue over, or think about for eternity. Whether or not we have a scripted plan obviously is unknown, and I'm not inclined to think that everything is drawn out to a T, but I am a firm believer that everything does happen for a reason which may be my own faith that in bad times good things will eventually come.
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