Life as a Performance

I found, in the second half of Cat’s Cradle, that my opinion on Bokonon’s purpose and Vonnegut’s purpose did not change. The events that unfolded centered around the same concepts that came up in the first half, and actually furthered my understanding of them, as was probably Vonnegut’s intention. I believe these concepts can be summed up by Philip Castle’s statement, “They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud,” said when he is describing how people in San Lorenzo lived life. I think this applies to idea of “meaninglessness” that we touched upon in class on Tuesday and alludes to the circles that we run in when discussing the book, filled with “no damn cat and no damn cradle.” 

According to some, the San Lorenzans are not living reality, but to every one of them, it is reality—they know no other reality. In this way, reality is completely dependent on perspective and thus essentially meaningless. Everyone is acting, faking, and pretending and the San Lorenzans have come to accept this; it’s as if they have it down, and everyone else needs to catch on to the strategy. Distinguishing between lies and truths, as Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates in his fiction work about untruths, is all a game, no aspect of which is even close to permanently damaging. The lesson learned is, inside and outside of Vonnegut’s novel, people need to take the lines they are given, the roles they are told to play, and the cards they are dealt, and simply go along with it, so that they can achieve happiness, so that fate will clap in favor of their “performance.”