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 returns to his seat near the Mintons. Minton asks John who he was talking to at the bar; Minton heard Crosby call him a “communist sympathizer.” Claire explains how a letter she wrote once got Minton fired from the State Department for being un-American; it dealt with “how Americans couldn’t imagine what it was like to be something else, to be something else and proud of it.”
The way in which Minton and Crosby demonstrate paranoia in this scene is demonstrative of the Cold War atmosphere in which the book was published. Minton and Claire, though official representatives of the U.S., are far less slavish to their country than the Crosbys.
Themes
