Previous
Chapter 1
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 quotes from The Books of Bokonon, explaining that a karass “ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries.” He recites Bokonon’s “Fifty-third Calypso,” which explains that all the different people of the world fit together “in the same machine.”
While never losing sight of its absurdist quality, Bokononism often contains ideas that seem to argue in favor greater cooperation between humans. These ideals have to be weighed against Bokonon’s own insistence that the religion is founded on harmless lies. Vonnegut here critiques the way that division between peoples, on whichever boundaries, leads to conflict.
Themes
