Here's the Vonnegut Term Paper. Obviously, I have eliminated the parenthetical citations as well as the bibliographic information so you cannot cheat too easily. Remember, if you want to plagiarize my work, have the decency to cite it back to me.

Scott Broadway

Mrs. Payne

AP English Literature and Composition

22 May 1998

Vonnegut, Amber, Bombs, Ice, and Birds That Say "Poo-tee-weet?"

In his 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner said, "There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up?" Clearly, Faulkner was referring to the threat of nuclear weapons, of the complete destruction of the Earth. Later, he expounds that the primary duty of the modern writer is to present "the old verities and truths of the heart." Whether or not Kurt Vonnegut ever heard these words is debatable, but it is sure that Vonnegut combines these principles in Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle. The novels, albeit disparate in plot and perspective, spin darkly satiric tales which become more similar with every page. The similarities and motifs that are found in these novels reveal Vonnegut’s response to war and display his essentially moralistic philosophy encapsulated in satire.

Vonnegut’s life experiences have greatly contributed to his distinctly American style. He was born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, son of a "second-generation architect" and a homemaker. He lived through the Depression in humble style, and the lack of money transformed his world. He was raised with ideals of family and home, but he also took with him the humor of culture icons like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy who lessened the "depressions." His father urged him to abandon his trite Indiana lifestyle and move on; Vonnegut later matriculated at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to study chemistry. As a managing editor for the Cornell Sun, he wrote editorials against American involvement in World War II. He also became a member of the Cornell chapter of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

World War II marked a distinct change in his life, causing him to enlist in the Army and briefly attend Carnegie Institute of Technology for mechanical engineering. Sent to Europe in 1944 as an infantry scout, he saw little armed conflict until the Germans captured him in December of 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge. As a German prisoner, he was sent to Dresden and forced to work in a factory producing vitamin-enriched malt syrup for pregnant women. Perhaps the defining moment in his life was the Allied firebombing of Dresden, where he and a small group of American prisoners survived the firestorm in the cellar of a slaughterhouse. He witnessed the largest and darkest massacre in European history: 135,000 people were incinerated in less than two hours. The memory of this pointless act of terror and war haunted him for years, directing many of his themes against war, violence, dictatorship, and science. He returned from the war, repatriated in May 1945.

It was only after the war that Vonnegut found his calling. He married in late 1945, and started working toward a Master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. His talent in anthropology was significant: he quickly realized that "all cultures function on faith rather than truth". However, the faculty at U of Chicago rejected two of his thesis proposals, and Vonnegut left the university without a Master’s degree. He had not attained his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell, so his highest level of schooling ended at a high school diploma. He moved to Schenectady, New York, and was hired as a public relations writer for General Electric, the company for whom his brother Bernard worked as an atmospheric physicist. His days were filled with the study of technology, and his free time was spent with scientists and researchers at GE. This was the time Vonnegut found that his talents were artistic rather than technical; the influence of technology mixed with middle class life allowed Vonnegut to bloom as a writer.

His first published work was "Report on the Barnhouse Effect," a short story published in Collier’s in 1949. It deals with a Professor Barnhouse at the Wyandotte Graduate School who controls a force deemed "dynamopsychism," essentially a heightened form of telekinesis. A subsequent short story written in 1950 was "EPICAC," surely a play off of ENIAC, which dealt with a computer at Wyandotte College that wrote poetry and ended up committing suicide because it could not marry the woman it loved. Purposefully, the scientists in Vonnegut’s stories and novels often discover that they have opened a "modern... Pandora’s Box" that causes them to question the moral and spiritual readiness of humankind. Themes of science earned Vonnegut the designation of science fiction, but he has argued against this many times. Vonnegut said in a 1968 interview:

I was classified as a science-fiction writer because I’d included machinery, and all I’d done was write about Schenectady in 1948! ...But I continued to include machinery in my books...Machinery is important. We must write about it.

Cat’s Cradle bears many similarities to such earlier works of Vonnegut’s fiction, in both the scientific characters and the point of view. One finds that Felix Hoenikker is Vonnegut’s perfect "mad scientist" because of his lack of morals and detachment from the world around him. Tony Tanner agrees, stating that Hoenikker "was only ‘playing’ when he invented the atom bomb." Games and trinkets, both of which have no real meaning to the world, fascinate Hoenikker. Schatt finds that Hoenikker is a tinkerer, a child who has not stopped "dawdling...on his way to school." This shows his detachment from the world at large. Hoenikker, father of the atom bomb, was merely acting on a dare when he created ice-nine; he made the crystal of ice-nine to help the Marines, but he really served to cause the end of the world. One finds that Hoenikker’s fascination with "how cannonballs are stacked on...courthouse lawns" signifies that he is concerned with the proverbial bullets and not those hurt by such bullets; he is not concerned with the consequences of his deadly inventions. Hoenikker is so detached from his family that one time he even tipped his wife after breakfast. Perhaps the best evidence of Hoenikker’s moral irresponsibility is present in Newt’s letter to Jonah: "a scientist turned to Father and said, ‘Science has now known sin.’ And do you know what Father said? He said, ‘What is sin?’"

Dr. Asa Breed is also a morally void scientist, who believes that science can solve all problems in the world, both personal and societal. In Cat’s Cradle, Breed states:

All of your questions are aimed at getting me to admit that scientists are heartless, conscienceless, narrow boobies, indifferent to the fate of the human race, or maybe not really members of the human race at all.

Breed is, in fact, the very thing that he does not want to be portrayed as. He would probably agree with the fact that the meaning of life is "protein." A charming bit of irony is that Breed’s Research Laboratory is built on the site of an old stockade; in this way, both buildings housed criminals against society. Another display of Breed’s hypocrisy is when he exclaims, "Peace on Earth! ...Good Will Toward Men!" In reality, all of his inventions, like the atom bomb, end up benefiting war and destruction.

Although there are no scientists of Hoenikker’s caliber in Slaughterhouse-Five, some characters and occurrences represent the same moral fatuousness as in Cat’s Cradle. For example, the firebombing of defenseless Dresden may be viewed as a petty show of Allied power rather than a calculated tactical move. Conrad Festa describes the bombing as "an act of cowardice and viciousness equal, at least in moral terms, to Pearl Harbor and Auschwitz." A morally void character in Slaughterhouse-Five is Paul Lazarro, who John W. Tilton sees as "The agent of [Billy’s] death." Physically, Lazarro is the weakest American among the prisoners. He threatens Billy’s life in 1944, and fulfills his promise on 13 February 1976. One time a dog bit Lazarro, so he killed the dog by feeding him a steak filled with sharpened bits of metal. Such cruelty is also analogous to that of Auschwitz, Pearl Harbor, and Dresden.

Lazarro’s character attributes are present in Cat’s Cradle as well. H. Lowe Crosby is a bicycle manufacturer that Jonah meets on his way to San Lorenzo; Crosby and his wife are blatant and ignorant hypocrites. Vonnegut says, "It suited him to confront the world with a sort of barn-yard clownishness." He repeatedly and proudly accused his enemies of being pissants, a term he defined rather bitingly:

A pissant is someone who thinks he’s so damn smart, he never can keep his mouth shut. No matter what anybody says, he’s got to argue with it...A pissant does his best to make you feel like a boob all the time.

In reality, Crosby is the biggest pissant in the novel, if you consider that definition. His wife is equally hypocritical, justifying her penchant for San Lorenzo in "The thing I like...is that they all speak English and they’re all Christians" when in fact San Lorenzans speak a mutated dialect of English and practice Bokononism. Both Crosbys are adamant proponents of capital punishment; they both enjoyed the Chamber of Horrors in London. To this effect, Vonnegut includes various graphic descriptions of capital punishment in both novels: the wax figure dying on the hook; the hanging of a murderer; the gruesome and "pitiful" Christ figure dying on the cross; the dishonorable death by firing squad of Edgar Derby; and Billy feeling as if on "the rack." Characters who advocate such violence are essentially empty of any morals.

Vonnegut’s moralistic concern is caused by the lack of humanitarian values in the modern world. Just as Jerome Klinkowitz says, "The writer’s function in society, Vonnegut insists, is to respond to life." Klinkowitz also states that Vonnegut created his own "personal mythology for dealing with the world," and this mythology became evident in the religious beliefs that he contrived in Cat’s Cradle and other works. At the center of these beliefs are a mild attack on the usefulness of Christianity and a commentary on the nature of religion itself.

The first evidence of religion in Cat’s Cradle is Vonnegut’s assumed persona, Jonah. The name was quite obviously chosen for a purpose; as Jonah was consumed by a whale serving as God’s will, Vonnegut was consumed by a desire to write Cat’s Cradle. Schatt points out that Vonnegut’s "consistent use of Jonah and Christ figures...[shows] his fascination with the problem of how human destiny can be reconciled with divine will." Bokononism is the second device contrived by Vonnegut to express his attitude toward religion. Bokonon’s creation story starts with God making man out of mud, and man asks this:

"What is the purpose of all this?"
"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man.
"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.
And He went away.

Thus, God left man to do with life as he pleased. Tony Tanner derives from this that man’s artificial boundaries and "black-and-white units" are opposing to the Bokononist belief of accepting the mystery of the vicissitudes of life. Thus, man can find no real meaning of life since God’s purposes are unknown; this is a rather deistic concept equating God to a Prime Mover in the universe. In addition, Bokonon always says, "As it was supposed to happen," when events are unexpected, ascribing the events to God instead. Bokonon has another attribute, says Tanner: "On the other hand it is an axiom of Bokononism that man has to tell himself that he understands life even when he knows he doesn’t."

In this way, much of life must be attributable to fate or fortune. The most significant and recurring parallel between the two novels is the metaphor of "bugs trapped in amber," whereas the progression of time is locked and mankind has a set destiny, like such fossilized insects. Thus, Bokonon’s quote about "As it was supposed to happen" has a more reasonable meaning. The best example of fate in Cat’s Cradle is the fortunes of the characters like Bokonon, Jonah, the Hoenikkers, and the Crosbys; they chance themselves on the same island at the same time and are doomed to witness the end of the world. Clinton Burhans recognizes that "For Vonnegut, man can do little to improve or change his condition." Further evidence of fate in Cat’s Cradle is that the worthless people of San Lorenzo cannot change their condition. This is equally true for Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five: he was a "funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth," became a "curious scarecrow" of a soldier, and died as a lecturer on the paranormal. One time, Billy thinks to himself, "Among the things [he] could not change were the past, the present, and the future."

This recognition of fate, randomness, and absurdity in life shows Vonnegut’s attitude toward life in general. Newt Hoenikker describes life with the phrase "No damn cat, and no damn cradle," which shows a distinct amount of nihilism toward the world. At the same time, however, Vonnegut admits, "nihilism was not for me." In addition, Billy Pilgrim may be seen as an existential "absurd hero" who can proudly transcend and prevail "in an insane world." Vonnegut’s nihilistic definition of life plus his view that time results as a "series of accidents" construes a meaning that Kennard considers Post-existential. Man’s question of "Why, why, why?" will never be answered since his search is futile to begin with. Even though Vonnegut knows this is true, he constructs within his books lies and delusions to make life bearable. In Cat’s Cradle, Bokononism is Vonnegut’s construction, a religion based entirely upon lies; these lies are the foma (harmless untruths) "that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." In this way, nothing true remains of the meaning of life except "humanitarianism," the concern for other human beings in a world devoid of meaning. Although Vonnegut is a Post-existentialist, he recognizes the value, if not the meaning, of human life.

Billy Pilgrim will never "achieve the wisdom of Bokonon," but he seeks to deal with his nihilistic life in a different manner. Instead of creating a religion, Slaughterhouse-Five creates for the reader a philosophy, which is Billy’s theory on the spastic nature of time. Billy Pilgrim tries to reinvent himself and his universe to escape the fears and memories of Dresden. Tilton emphatically thinks that Billy’s time travel was feigned, a product of his imagination. He theorizes that Billy first conjured Tralfamadore in 1968 because the year was so very climactic: his plane crashed, his associates died, and his wife passed away of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. This coincides with the social and political turmoil that Vonnegut was witnessing in 1968: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam war, the riots, the presidential campaign, and the Democratic National Convention. Such climactic events caused both Vonnegut and Billy to look back in time, much as Lot’s wife looked the destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Billy and Vonnegut have striking similarities when they discover their haunting memories of Dresden. Billy bumps into his memories on his wedding anniversary in 1964 when the barbershop quartet sang about "That Old Gang of Mine." The closest Billy ever came to an ‘old gang’ was during World War II, and most of his comrades were killed anyway. Also in 1964, Vonnegut’s responded to the memory of Dresden by finding his "war buddy" Bernard O’Hare and trying to reminisce. Billy’s first supposed "visit" to Tralfamadore was in 1967 , the same year in which Vonnegut and O’Hare used a Guggenheim Fellowship to go back to Dresden. Billy’s method of coping with the pain associated with Dresden was to deny it and use the Tralfamadorian method of looking at the good moments in life; Vonnegut’s method was to write about it. In his 1968 interview, Vonnegut says,

"I came home in 1945, started writing about it, and wrote about it...and WROTE ABOUT IT...The book is a process of twenty years of this sort of living with Dresden and the aftermath."

His work of twenty years turned into the "anti-war book" entitled Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade.

In a similar manner, Cat’s Cradle is a response to war. Tanner points out that the narrator set out to write a book entitled The Day The World Ended discussing the life of Felix Hoenikker, father of the atom bomb. Instead, the narrator witnesses the actual end of the world, caused by another one of Hoenikker’s inventions. Hoenikker created the atom bomb for the US government, and ice-nine for the US Marines; both institutions are founded in war. This asserts Vonnegut’s moral conviction that all science inevitably becomes a weapon. Furthermore, Angela Hoenikker’s husband is a government employee; she does not know what he does at work, but she says it deals with "war, anyway." Ice-nine is an immoral invention, a weapon that destroys the defenseless world in a pointless and random manner. In the same pointless manner, the Allies bombed the defenseless city of Dresden, reducing 135,000 people to dust and ashes.

Vonnegut’s response to death in Slaughterhouse-Five is the phrase "So it goes." It is used eighty-one times throughout the novel, always after a death. It is an element of Vonnegut’s satire, and its purpose is to de-emphasize death with an impersonal eulogy. Death and the apocalypse are essential elements of the two novels, and both themes are addressed by using events centering on Hiroshima, Dresden, the end of the world, and the end of the universe. Vonnegut’s response to both Dresden and the freezing of the world is expressed by a "meaningless question from a bird": "Poo-tee-weet?" Willis McNelly ponders Vonnegut’s view of the futility of life and theorizes that "Poo-tee-weet" is some kind of rebirth to go against such futility. Thus, "Poo-tee-weet" is Vonnegut’s ultimate acceptance of war and death; he ultimately accepts the things he "cannot change."

This view of an imminent apocalypse is key to understanding why Vonnegut writes as he does. One can compare him to a canary in a coal mine; he is an indicator of impending danger, chirping out a "Poo-tee-weet" to warn society of its lack of morals. Festa justifies Vonnegut’s satire by showing that it holds an attack on its subjects while also contradicting its "surface meaning." Vonnegut attacks the "evils of technology and the follies of American life" while also providing a poignant warning against war. As a review on the cover of Cat’s Cradle, Time magazine describes Vonnegut as "George Orwell...a zany but moral mad scientist." Like George Orwell, he shows society the possible outcomes of abuses of the modern world. Vonnegut’s satiric style and sardonic tone in Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five help to warn readers about how humanity’s modern practices are liable to destroy the world.