Every word in Vonnegut’s Cat’s
Cradle was carefully chosen; no one sentence means only one thing. From the
prologue “Nothing in this book is true,” to “Call me Jonah” the first three
words in the book, Vonnegut uses terms that allude to many more things than we
could ever imagine. The levels of manipulation are determined by the knowledge
you bring into the reading.
I did some research and found that Vonnegut based Dr.
Hoenikker on a scientist named Irving Langmuir—a Nobel Prize winning scientist
who happened to come up with the original idea of ice nine and who used to work at
General Electric Research Company. This happens to be where Vonnegut used to
work in the public relations department. There are many references to this
company throughout the book, and ice-nine is one very big part of the story.
After analyzing page one of this book in class (and taking
about two pages of notes), I came to the conclusion that nothing in this book
is an accident and everything is carefully orchestrated to control how I feel,
think and react. The first sentence: “Call me Jonah,” alludes to the bible and
to Moby Dick. If you only know that it refers to the bible, you would read
Jonah one way; if you only know that it refers to Moby Dick, you would read it
another way; and if you know both, you look at it in yet another way. Maybe it
refers to something completely different that I have absolutely no knowledge
of. Each time you figure out a reference, you connect it to the story and all
of a sudden it all makes more sense. Kind of.
I think you're right when you say Vonnegut carefully chose his words when writing this book in order to create layers of allusions and hidden meanings. The very first sentence, the pretext, sets the stage for the reader to question the truth in the book. In addition, the fact that the name "Jonah" can mean ominous may foreshadow the disaster that struck San Lorenzo. But the similarity of the opening sentence to "Moby Dick" must have been intentional as well; so I agree that the book is orchestrated to make us feel and think as we read.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like how you did some additional research on the characters, because I didn't think of the idea that they may be based on real people or real ideas. Now that I know Vonnegut based Felix Hoenikker on a real person and made allusions to a place where he actually worked, I realize that there may be other aspects of the story based on his experiences.