Cats Cradle Seminar Prep

Oli Sakadinsky

The cats cradle to me was symbolic of our attempts to give our lives purpose and meaning.
Newt illustrated that while we can construct what we choose to call a cats cradle between our
fingers, what is actually there is not what we say there is. It seemed to symbolize the lies we tell
ourselves to make us feel important, like when Angela told everyone all about her loving
husband when in actuality he was cruel and disloyal to her. Also, while there is the traditional
cats cradle formation you can make, it is just a piece of string that you can weave around your
fingers however you want. I thought this might have also been representative of religion in the
book, because as Bokonon said, Bokononism was just heaps of lies, like what we picture
between our fingers in the cats cradle, but if that was what you chose to see as truth then more
power to you.
In the context of the Cold War, this book definitely took on a different significance. I didnt really
understand ice-nine until I thought of it as representative of the atomic bomb during the Cold
War. It was technology that could theoretically wipe out the whole world, put into the hands of
individual countries that didnt quite know what to do with it. Like the Hoenikker children, the
United States and the Soviet Union used this technology as a tool to get what they wanted.
Newt, Angela, and Frank all used the ice-nine to get into a position of power, whether that be
through a relationship or a job. The two opposing sides of the cold war did the same thing with
Mutually Assured Destruction the power theyd bestowed upon themselves could potentially
destroy the world as we know it (like ice-nine), and with that in mind they used it to try to put
themselves in a position of dominance over the opposing ideology.
I thought a theme in Cats Cradle was existentialism. There were lots of references to things like
human futility (on page 164) and meaninglessness (on page 169). Particularly, the character
of Julian Castle seemed to have an existentialist outlook on life, from what I gathered from his
quote, Youll forget everything when youre dead (151). The context of this quote makes it
seem like hes saying everything we ever achieve in life is for nothing, since we all just die
anyway. The characters also put a lot of emphasis on the importance of writing, which I
interpreted as a way to wind your own story and give your life your own meaning.