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.
