Willy's Roundup

Sorry this is a bit late! I got home late and had a bit of trouble posting.

We’ve seen in each of our books so far that the use of trivial seriousness and serious triviality has been a common theme. I wanted to further look into Vonnegut’s use of this theme near the end of the story.

Throughout Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut constantly points out the superficial human need to find a purpose in existence. Here we see once again, the use of something serious as a trivial piece of satire.  Bokononism stands in as a sort of religion that people look to in order to find meaning, yet in the very first book of Bokonon, it tells the reader to “Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma!”, which “of course, are lies”  (265). Vonnegut implies that humans are so trivial to look at these “lies” in our seeking of things so serious as purpose and meaning. He criticizes our choice to look at the Bible as an answer in order to feel a sense of meaning and importance because even something so serious and common as the Bible is hardly proven to be true.  

Vonnegut continues on to further satirize human beings and prove that we, as human beings simply have no purpose at all. Vonnegut parallels the ice-nine flood with God’s flooding of the earth in the book of Genesis. Vonnegut chooses to use such a petty instrument like ice-nine to flood the earth and further kill off humanity in order to petty human existence and the great flood in the first place. By choosing the modest means of ice-nine, a small little seed, to wipe out humankind, he implies that human existence was something unimportant in the first place. Vonnegut expresses this sense of unimportance through reactions like Hazel’s who states, “it’s no use crying over spilt milk”, in reference to the spillage of ice-nine, and Mona’s which is a simple laugh at the occurrence.

In closing, Kurt Vonnegut is attempting to make us better. While his argument might seem unpopular, it is worth giving a second thought to what we base our purpose and existence on. 

Paragraph Review

Please post your paragraph as a comment.

Harry's Post

Hello all, here’s my blog post, which hopefully serves as food for thought and discussion as well as proof that I am indeed alive.

The use of the "cat's cradle" as a metaphor for a facade used to conceal unpleasant reality particularly intrigued me.

"'From the way she talked,' I said, 'I thought it was a very happy marriage.' Little Newt held his hands six inches apart and he spread his fingers. 'See the cat? See the cradle?'(Vonnegut 179)

Newt pantomimes a cat's cradle, asking Jonah if he can "See the cat? See the cradle?"(179).  Obviously, Jonah can see neither the cat nor cradle, and not even the string; all are objects of the imagination. Angela's facade of a happy marriage is no more real than the cat sitting in Newt's imaginary string cradle. Indeed, her husband "'hardly ever comes home–and when he does, he's drunk and generally covered with lipstick."'(179)

Through Newt's rhetorical question, the titular cat's cradle becomes more than the child's game of string; it seems to take new meaning as a reference to the human tendency to create an imaginary scene or explanation when the real one is found to be lacking. 

The cat's cradle reappears in the next chapter, when Little Newt scoffs at religion with the same phrase.  Here, Newt seems to reveal an aspect of his own character: his unwillingness to acknowledge things whose existence cannot be simply proven. To Newt, the imaginary nature of his cat's cradle is no different than the supposed existence of God.  Neither the cat nor God can be seen by Newt, leading him to view both as nonexistent. This use of the cat's cradle is consistent with Newt's previous comment, which used the cat's cradle to describe the act of using imagination when reality is insufficient or unsatisfactory.

           

Another passage that I found interesting was part of Frank's explanation of why he could not be president.  According to Frank, "Maturity ... is knowing what your limitations are"(198). Frank continues to explain that he cannot be president because he is no good at facing the public.  This definition of maturity as the acceptance of one's limitations is particularly interesting given that Bokonon defines maturity as "a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything"(198). These two definitions of maturity when viewed together seem to convey that acknowledging one's limitations must be a severely disappointing experience.

Sachin's Round Up

As we have discussed a bit in class, there seems to be this idea of absent-mindedness that exists in Vonnegut’s society. In the early chapters, we have learned of Felix Hoenikker’s inability to interact with others and how he always seems to be detached from his surroundings. Dr. Hoenikker never interacted with his kids, and the first time he did so, his son dashed away immediately in tears, unable to cope with his father’s ugliness. Later, when his daughter’s car breaks down, she is unable to fix the problem, and Dr. Hoenikker, completely indifferent to the situation, simply shares that he likes turtles. We see even more of this detachment when we meet Dr. Breed's secretary at Hoenikker's office.

The absent-minded nature of this society, in my opinion, directly relates to science itself. The stress on finding the truth in science completely outshines the other aspects like morality. With the development of the atomic bomb, Hoenikker never took into account the many lives that would be taken when they dropped it on Hiroshima. I think this is one of Vonnegut's underlying messages, that science overpowers morality and ignores its effect on others.

I also think Dr. Hoenikker lacks these morals and shows no concern for other people. First, when Angela is scolding her brothers as they play in the bush, she calls for their father, who sticks his head out of the window and quickly returns to his work without any care for the commotion. And when the doctor's wife passes away, he promptly pulls his daughter out of school to be the caretaker for the family. He shows no regard for her future and ignores the fact that he should be the responsible parent to his children.

Emily's Post

There were a couple of things from the reading that struck me, so I am going to offer up a couple of ideas for all of you and hopefully at least one of them will resonate with you as well.

First is the ideas of toys and playing. As we discussed on Wednesday, Newt offers up the idea that his father never plays games, saying, "that cat's cradle was the closest I ever saw my father come to playing what anybody else would call a game" (Vonnegut 11). Along with the accounts of other people, we seem to content ourselves with the idea that Dr. Felix Hoenikker was not one for playing games of any sort. But what if "anybody else" is the key phrase here? Felix was, as proven, not interested with people (we know this both by the incidents with his children and with the people at work), but I think he was above all interested with playing games. First he became obsessed with playing with turtles, and when they were taken away, he "looked for things to play with and think about" (Vonnegut 16) and all that was around was the atomic bomb. Similarly, his office is filled with cheap toys (a paper kite, a toy gyroscope, a top, a bubble pipe, and a fish bowl), suggesting that even at work all he does is play. It is the senselessness of this playing, the use of the cheap, dollar store toys in contrast with the expensive, complex laboratory equipment, that I think attempts to satirize the idea of the scientist who searches for knowledge with no concern for its application. It is ironic that this man of "incalculable importance" could be solving problems for the military, but instead chooses to fill his office with the toys of his fancy. Vonnegut uses this idea to satirize the aimless search of knowledge to no end.

I also find what I think Vonnegut says about truth to be interesting. From the epigraph we see "Nothing in this book is true" meaning that the truth in itself is really not that important. On a side not, this reminds me of the book "The Things They Carried". For those of you that have not read it, the book is war narrative, that is revealed to be untrue. Yet, the point of telling stories that are not true is through telling lies, reality can be exposed.  Anyways, from the beginning we see Vonnegut's opinion of the truth: "Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either" (Vonnegut 5-6). Furthermore, in the exchange between Miss Faust and Dr. Felix, when she responds that "God is love" is an absolute truth, Dr. Hoenikker says, "'"What is God? What is love?"'" (Vonnegut 55). I think through all of these examples Vonnegut tries to make the point that truth in itself does not suffice. Neither scientific nor religious truth are wholly, absolutely true, yet they are the truths we create to fulfill our human needs, both spiritual and otherwise.

The last idea I found interesting was the juxtaposition of Martin and Asa Breed. Obviously we are meant to compare them, as they are brothers, and it becomes clear that despite both working in the business of death (Asa in the creation of weapons of mass destruction, Martin in a tombstone shop), they respond very differently to the concept of death. Asa, being removed from the consequences of his actions, feels no remorse and instead esteems the atrocities of warfare. Martin, on the other hand, deals directly with the grief experienced by families, and is thus one of the most sympathetic characters introduced to us in the book. He understands the pain of the Hoenikker children, and while Asa highly esteems Dr. Felix, his intelligence, and his accomplishments, Martin denounces him for his selfishness, saying, "That man, who's so famous for having a great mind, he pulled that girl out of high school in her sophomore year so he could go on having some woman take care of him" (Vonnegut 71). Despite his sophisticated job, Asa appears ridiculous and ignorant when compared to his brother, whose deep understanding of grief and human relations prove him to be the most normal and likable character portrayed thus far in the book. In this instance, Vonnegut satirizes the obsession of our society with fame and money, as it pales in comparison to compassion and sympathy towards fellow human beings.

I have a very busy Thursday night so posting this now instead... hopefully this will make it easier on the rest of you as well because you now have more time to read over my post before getting your responses in by 9PM!

Jianna's Post

Looking from the perspective of Tom’s influence on Huck, Huck appears to not have grown much as a character. From the very beginning, Tom, or Huck’s ideal of Tom, almost represents Huck’s individuality. Huck’s defiance against morality, taught by the widow, is most exemplified in his willingness to go to hell as long as Tom goes there too. Huck’s adventurous nature and bold thoughts are what drove us to conclude that Huck is an open-minded character with unique ideas. Yet, his defiance never reaches so far as against Tom. Although we see that Tom is flawed in his constant reliance on other books for his adventures, Huck clearly never sees him as anything less than perfection. (Even though he did question Tom a couple times, Huck never arrived at the conclusion that Tom is just as didactic as the widow) Moreover, throughout the adventure, Huck constantly refers back to Tom and what he would do.

Now, the story almost seems divided in half, before and after Tom Sawyer shows up. For the first half of the story, our discussion surrounding individuality vs. mob mentality/morality is also a parallel to our discussion about the strange and irregular vs. the norm. Tom Sawyer is supposed to represent the strange and irregular, if we ignore his flaws as Huck does. So for Huck, he would analyze the first half of the story as what Tom represents vs. people who try to disrupt he and Jim’s freedom/community. This idea follows through as we see that all relationships and communities that Huck forms on his adventure are connected by the ideas of risks, lies, and escapes, exactly the kinds of things that adventures need. So, for the first half of the story, we never really had to confront Huck’s over idealized version of Tom, and we simply categorize Huck’s actions as deriving from his own individuality and growth.

Once Tom shows up, however, we can no longer ignore the fact that Tom is flawed and that Huck doesn’t see it. Therefore, when Huck starts following Tom around, his action contradicts what we previously concluded as growth in Huck. The second half of the story becomes about Huck’s true individuality vs. Tom. As the first half of the story gives no set up for Huck to possibly grow beyond the individuality inspired by Huck’s idealized Tom, it’s unrealistic for Huck to suddenly defy Tom, his original source of unique identity. So, I would say throughout the story Huck has not grown much as an individual. He may have become more insightful, formed better friendships, and gotten less bored, but his deeper understanding of relationships and how society functions has not developed beyond what adventure necessitates.

Liam's Friday Roundup Post

In the final story arc of Huck Finn, Huck and Jim revert to their former selves in the presence of Huck's old friend Tom. Up until the final episode, Huck seems to have grown as a person, learning from his experiences and developing his own set of moral guidelines. From his friendship with Jim to his revulsion of the Prince and Duke, Huck shows signs of significant character development leading into one of the biggest plot turns: Jim has been captured and is going to be sold back into slavery. However, when Tom Sawyer enters the picture, all of Huck's defining characteristics vanish as he allows himself to play a much more subservient role: "I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different; but I knowed mighty well that whenever he got his plan ready it wouldn't have none of them objections to it." Rather than sticking with his safe, logical plan, Huck deffered to Tom's "judgement," which was solely focused on prolonging and complicating the rescue for the sake of adventure.

As we've said many times in class before, this really complicates the entire message of the book, as our hero who has grown so much over the entirety of the novel just backs down and plays along with Tom at the expense of Jim, who has constantly looked out for Huck the entire novel. From filling the hut with snakes and bugs to stealing things from the house and blaming the slaves, Tom's plan completely inconveniences and hurts all the black people around them. Whereas we tried so hard to fish for an anti-slavery message in the book, the last 20% of the novel is completely focused on making the audience laugh at hurting black people. Huck's friendship with Jim isn't even worth enough for him to argue with Tom, and he never once even thinks about who their actions are really affecting. Much like the fog incident, Jim is once again the butt of a nasty joke, although this one lasts for weeks before Tom finally reveals that Jim was actually free and he was just using him for adventure.

So what do we take away from this book? Is Mark Twain a racist who just wanted to fool readers into believing that he really cared about blacks before crushing that idea with the last episode? Did he get lazy and just wrap things up with a story completely detached from the rest of the book? Is Twain actually satirizing the readers, fooling them for the last time as they realize that all the little reveals and seemingly meaningful plot points were actually completely amoral, aimed at goading analysis out of critics while he laughed at them trying to discern a meaning of his work? Or was it something else, something that we haven't talked about yet? Dismissing the last episode as laziness, racism, or anything so simple is a very easy trap to fall into, but I think that Twain was after something more complex. From his opening notice to the very deliberate dialect, I don't think that Twain would have wrapped up his novel without any real meaning, but I don't think that we've reached an answer yet. This last episode forces us to look deeper into the text, reexamining Huck's growth and relationships to see if we were truly grasping at straws for some moral to take away, or if he really does want us to search for a deeper message.