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 goes to talk to Bokonon, who is sitting barefoot on a rock, his feet “frosty with ice-nine.” John asks what Bokonon is thinking; he replies that he is searching for the “final sentence” for The Books of Bokonon. John asks what he’s come up with.
Bokonon, in a way, is the book’s authority. But throughout his writings he consistently denies his own authority, thereby making this a world without any true authority. By implication, the real world is the same. Furthermore, with nobody left to believe in Bokonon, it is absurd that he is even working on the last pages of his scripture.
Themes
Bokonon, shrugging, hands John a piece of paper. It reads: “if I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe … and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison … and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.”
