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 narrates the story of Bokonon’s life as told by Philip Castle’s book. Bokonon went to the London School of Economics before fighting in World War One. He spent two years in hospital after being gassed at the Battle of Ypres, before heading back to his native Tobago. On his way home, he was captured by a German submarine, which was in turn sunk by a British ship.
Bokonon has an incredible back story that creates the sense that he was fated to end up on San Lorenzo (which is part of his myth).
Themes
Bokonon then travelled around the world, working various odd-jobs. One of these was as a gardener on the Rumfoord large estate on Rhode Island, where glimpsed many distinguished guests (e.g. J.P Morgan, General Pershing, and Franklin D. Roosevelt).
The guests that Bokonon served were some of the most influential figures in modern American history. J.P. Morgan was powerful financier; Pershing was a US general in WW1; Roosevelt, of course, was president. They are all part of the construction of American ideals.
Themes
Bokonon was then tasked with sailing the yacht belonging to one of the Rumfoords. This ship crashed in India, and Bokonon spent two years as a follower of Mohandas K. Ghandi. He then built his own ship, sailing it around the Caribbean.
Ghandi was an Indian activist who fought peacefully against British colonial rule. The mention of him, as with the famous Americans, reminds the reader of the idea of humankind’s historical arc. The suggestion that Bokonon is part of it is meant to be deeply absurd.
Themes
One day, Bokonon sought shelter from a hurricane by landing in Haiti. Here he met Earl McCabe, a Marine deserter who had stolen his company’s recreation fund. McCabe offered Bokonon money to transport him to Miami, but they were also caught in bad weather. They swam ashore, naked, to San Lorenzo.
There is obviously a clear irony in San Lorenzo, a country purportedly in line with American ideals, being founded by a U.S. army deserter. The book is full of double standards and hypocrisy, with everyone’s standpoints built on (literal) shifting sands.
Themes
Get the entire Cat’s Cradle LitChart as a printable PDF.
Bokonon was enchanted by San Lorenzo, feeling that he was fated to end up there. “Bokonon” is the San Lorenzian way of pronouncing his birth name, “Johnson.” John says the San Lorenzian English dialect is “easy to understand and difficult to write down.” He gives Philip Castle’s translation of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” According to Bokononist legend, Bokonon’s ship will sail again, painted gold, when the end of the world arrives.
The use of “Twinkle, Twinkle” is a deliberate gesture towards the innocence of childhood and, in particular, the corruption of childhood (the cat's cradle serves a similar function). This section establishes the end-of-times myth for Bokononism.
Themes
