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 stands next to Crosby to watch the flyover. Suddenly, one of the planes goes up in flames as it approaches the island; it spirals into the cliff below and explodes. This causes a rockslide, bringing down one tower of “Papa” Monzano’s castle. The crowd look on in astonishment.
Though this is the obvious beginning of the calamitous events that bring ice-nine into contact with the sea, the behavior of the Hoenikkers started the process long before. It’s fitting that it’s a ceremony—a demonstration of civility and might—is the accidental cause of the destruction.
Themes
The rock slides continue, and a great crack emerges in the ground. The crowd race to get across the crack. John, Philip, and Frank help Hazel and H. Lowe Crosby to safety, but Claire and Horlick Minton refuse their help: “My guess is that they were thinking of dignity, of emotional proportion above all else.” The Mintons float off on the split of rock, holding hands and facing the sea. Their rock crashes down into the water.
The Mintons don’t wish to scramble for their lives, instead lending the proceedings their symbolic deaths. The crack in the ground riffs on the biblical prophecy that Armageddon will be signaled by a similar seismic event.
Themes
