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Chapter 120
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cat’s Cradle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Morality
Religion
Governance, Politics, and Nationhood
Absurdity and Meaninglessness
Summary
Analysis
John and Mona can’t see any sign of Bokonon. John is outraged at the “gall of the man.” Mona laughs, saying that “it’s all so simple.” She asks if John would wish any of the dead people to be alive again. She touches her finger to the ground, raises it to her lips, and dies.
Mona doesn’t share John’s outrage. She essentially points to the meaninglessness of life as a cosmic joke, and takes that as instruction for her to join the other suicides.
Themes
Present-day John says he doesn’t remember if he wept, but that Crosby, Hazel, and Newt now came to his aid in Bolivar’s “one taxicab.” In the taxi, Hazel tells John not to worry as he is with “mom” now. He leans on her with “deep, idiotic relief.”
It transpires that there were other survivors. John, shaken by events, is relieved to be comforted, even if it is in a “deep” and “idiotic” way.
Themes
