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
Julian goes on, saying that Bokonon and McCabe threw out the Christian priests when they arrived on the island. They “cynically and playfully” came up with a new religion. They did so because they realized that “no governmental or economic reform” would improve the lot of the San Lorenzians; “so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies.” He also conspired with McCabe to outlaw himself and his religion, thereby making it more exciting for the islanders.
Everything about Bokononism, then, is a lie. Bokonon and McCabe took Karl Marx’s idea that religion is the “opiate of the masses” and ran with it, making Bokononism the “stimulant” of the masses too, in the sense that it provides their daily lives with excitement by virtue of the religion’s outlawed status.
Themes
Bokonon also came up with “the hook,” having seen something similar at Madame Tussaud’s in London. No one died on it in the beginning, explains Julian. McCabe would regularly stage hunts for Bokonon, who hid in the jungle. The fake hunt would result in McCabe declaring that Bokonon had “done the impossible … escaped, had evaporated, had lived to preach another day.”
McCabe and Bokonon were thus engaged in a kind of absurd performance put on for the “benefit” of the islanders. Each time McCabe would “fail” to find Bokonon it would heighten his mythic quality.
Themes
