Irony and Hypocrisy

Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Cat's Cradle, appears to be a story filled with irony, and dedicated to criticizing American social structures and political decisiveness. Vonnegut entirely bases the novel around a young man from Indiana, the narrator that desires to write a book about the day the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. While the narrator of the story wanders around the world tracking Felix Hoenikker's children his experiences and actions indirectly suggest belief in major hypocrisies extant within America. For example, when the narrator travels to the laboratory where Hoenikker worked to interview Dr. Breed and examine Hoenikker's private area the secretary of the laboratory decoratively hung banners that said "Peace on Earth" and "Good Will Toward Men." These banners directly exhibit irony because of the laboratory in which they are hung. This laboratory is where Felix Hoenikker developed the ultimate killing device, the atom bomb.

Vonnegut epitomizes irony by describing banners preaching peace and respect towards life in the laboratory where the atom bomb, the ultimate life destroyer, was first created. This irony also directly voices issues in American society and politics.

Vonnegut contextualizes the system that was in place when the atom bomb was dropped. By pointing out such blatant irony he directly sheds light onto the hypocrisy of the American social and political system. This irony speaks on a greater scale; a scale that is the size of America. Americans claim that they respect life and humanity through The Bill of Rights and The Constitution, but go ahead and drop a bomb on the hundreds of innocent civilians in Japan. The small-scalle irony depicted within the General Forge and Foundry Company speaks on a greater scale regarding American social and political structures.