An Underprivileged Nation

San Lorenzo is described as an "underprivileged nation" with only one city. With a name like San Lorenzo, one might assume the island ought to be a beachy, balmy paradise instead of of "a sour mash of slop, feculence [full of fecal matter], and slime" (133). When first visited by Johnson and McCabe, they had high hopes of turning the impoverished nation into a utopia. This was described as an "idealistic phase." However, in San Lorenzo, "everybody was bound to fail,...for it was as unproductive as an equal area in the Sahara or the Polar Icecap" (133). Johnson and McCabe had "failed" and "'Papa' Monzano had failed too." Did "Papa" Monzano truly fail? As poverty-stricken, muddy, and crowded San Lorenzo is, the inhabitants are compelled and encouraged by Bokonism and it’s many promises. For some, it may indeed be a utopia.

The first "calypso" in the Book of Bokonism read (103):

"Papa" Monzano, he's so very bad,
But without bad "Papa" I would be so sad;
Because without "Papa's" badness,
Tell me, if you would,
How could wicked old Bokonon
Ever, look so good?


The juxtaposition between, good and evil in the first "calypso" is used to define them. A similar theme carries throughout the novel, not only of the comparison between good and evil, but between impoverished and utopia in the case of San Lorenzo, and between Christianity and Bokonism as religious backgrounds. How do we define something as good or bad without having something else to compare it to? We cannot simply say something is good or bad, better or worse, right or wrong, if we are trying to describe it by itself. Vonnegut calls attention to this comparison throughout his writing in Cat's Cradle, thus encouraging us as readers to ponder can something can be true by itself? Or is everything we think to be true contrasted with something we believe is a lie?