Structure

A building is established upon a very sturdy and stable structure. That structure, after all, must support the entire weight of the building. A college class has a very organized and straightforward structure. The structure of the course is outlined for students on the first day, so students know exactly what to expect. A story contains a structure to provide the backbone to a plot. That structure ties together all the pieces of the tale, making the story cohesive and comprehensible. From these scenarios, we can recognize that the connotation of the word “structure” implies stability, organization and some kind of framework. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, defies all these preconceived notions of structure, rendering many elements of his story to seem unstable and capricious.

Vonnegut establishes numerous cases throughout Cat’s Cradle where the structure for a truth or object changes erratically. The most apparent example is the game of cat’s cradle, which is a reoccurring theme in the book. In this game, a piece of string provides a structure that gives the appearance of an object. However, a moment later, the structure can change and the very same string can create an illusion of an entirely different object. Thus, from cat’s cradle, we recognize a structure that frequently transforms. Another more literal scenario in Cat’s Cradle deals with the structure of water. Ever since elementary school, we have been taught that the melting point of water is always 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Science tells us the structure of water’s properties never varies. However, Felix Hoenikker is able to change the basic structure of water to have a melting point of 114.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Vonnegut’s ability to break down the structure that formed a previously accepted truth is certainly unsettling. Finally, the structure of Cat’s Cradle, itself, is unclear through to the last page of the book. First, we believe we are reading Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, then we realize we might be reading a historical book, once intended to be titled, “The Day the World Ended”. About halfway through the novel, we begin to wonder whether we are actually reading the religious texts of the “Books of Bokonon”. By manipulating structures that we readers take to be inherently unchangeable, Vonnegut clearly rebels against the typical purpose of structure, which leaves us very unnerved while reading the book.

I feel as though Vonnegut chose to disrupt all the various structures of his book in order to further remove us from being able to distinguish fact from fiction in the story. While reading a typical story, we use the structure of the book and the concepts emanating from the book to place us in a certain setting for the story. For example, Vonnegut wrote about a world that appears to be normal; the concept of “water” acts as one of those elements that tells us we are on our normal planet Earth. When Vonnegut unveiled the “fact” that the melting point of water can be changed, we, as readers lost all our grounding for how to know what we should interpret as real and what we should interpret as fiction. We no longer know what to believe in the story.

As a result of Vonnegut’s unpredictable underlying structures, we are distrustful of every word and every concept that is written in Cat’s Cradle. I believe Vonnegut’s intentions were for us to apply this distrust beyond Cat’s Cradle and to other aspect of our lives. People are often too accepting, whether it is of a “wonderful scientific innovation”, a “newfound heaven-guaranteeing religion” or of people in general. We need to take a second look and question reality more, because the truths we have always found to be inherent in life may just be illusions.