Cat’s Cradle

Vonnegut’s satire has religion directly in its sights. Much of the novel takes place on San Lorenzo, a fictional island in the Caribbean where inhabitants practice the outlawed religion of Bokononism (another Vonnegut invention). Through this device, Vonnegut explores both the false and genuine hope that religion offers to humankind, all the while leading to the ultimate conclusion that religion does nothing to offset the potential of human folly and instead is merely a manmade, temporary comfort. Using the fictional religious tradition of Bokononism allows Vonnegut to reveal that religion, more broadly, is fictional—through Bokononism, Vonnegut highlights that religion is human-constructed and is a temporary, illusory balm for the pain of living.

From the start, Vonnegut foregrounds the fact that Bokononism is a made-up religion. In fact, the book opens with an epigraph that invites the reader to “live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.” Foma is the Bokononist term for “harmless untruths.” Religion is thus characterized as a kind of comfort blanket for humankind (though the “harmless” is, of course, deeply ironic, given the amount of conflict that has been, and continues to be, fought over religion). Not only is Bokononism made up by Vonnegut, but within the context of the story it is also expressly fictional. That is, it was invented by Bokonon, who took over San Lorenzo with his partner, Edward McCabe. When the two men failed to raise the standard of living on the island, Bokonon developed the religion as a way of helping the islanders escape the drudgery of their existence. Bokonon even instructed McCabe to outlaw Bokononism, to give it a sense of edginess that would make life more exciting (in the novel, this tradition is carried on by the island’s modern-day ruler, “Papa” Monzana—though he practices it himself in secret).

Vonnegut thus portrays religion as a deeply cynical exercise that—though it brings small solace to the inhabitants of San Lorenzo—is based on a deliberate falsehood. By placing the artificiality of Bokononism in plain sight for the reader, while also showing how it functions in daily life, Vonnegut implicitly criticizes the world’s religions. Through centuries of distance from their original genesis, these religions have lost sight of their artifice—and much blood has been shed in the defense of their “truths.” Vonnegut thus tells a story that in turn implores the reader to view religions as made-up stories too. Though they might have their comforts, Vonnegut portrays them as fictions. This isn’t to make a case for atheism necessarily—Vonnegut is more concerned with highlighting the hypocrisies—dangers, even—in claiming eternal truths, and in showing the way in which the promises of religion fail to counteract humankind’s folly besides providing temporary glimmers of hope. 

Cat’s Cradle is, in a sense, written after the main event: the release of ice-nine has frozen the world’s waters and practically annihilated life on earth. The narrator, John, is writing the book in the last days of existence on San Lorenzo. He has become a convert to Bokononism, and he litters the book with Bokononist terminology and quoted scripture. If the invention of Bokononism allows Vonnegut to explore the role of religion on a wide scale, the use of Bokononist terms within the narrative allows him to take satirical aim at specific traits of religion. For example, John frequently mentions the term “karass”: this is a group of people—a “team”—brought together to “do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing.” Vonnegut thus plays with ideas of free will and fate, undermining the idea of a divine plan by the fact that those who carry it out never understand what their purpose actually is. Furthermore, the division into “teams” echoes the division of the world into different religions. Vonnegut seems to suggest the arbitrary nature of the world’s religious divisions, which tend to see people follow the religion that matches the geographical location of their upbringing.

Another example is the Bokononist ceremony of “boko-maru”—this is a form of worship that between two Bokononists in which they rub their feet together as a “mingling of awareness.” Vonnegut gives these moments an erotic quality which is both darkly comic in its physical innocence and perhaps a dig at religious attitudes toward sex more generally. While boko-maru speaks to the human desire to connect, the reader knows that the whole religion is, in the words of its creator, based on “foma”—lies. And, of course, the idea of heightened interpersonal “awareness” is deeply ironic when placed side-by-side with humankind’s capacity for self-destruction.

Bokononism, then, functions as a way for Vonnegut to satirize humankind’s relationship with religion (rather than the specific religions themselves). Ultimately, the inhabitants of the island commit mass suicide on the instruction of Bokonon, which, for the reader, removes any sense in which the book could be considered as showing religion as anything but a temporary—and false—redemption from human stupidity. Bokonon, in fact, ends the book by saying, if he were a younger man, he would “write a history of human stupidity,” instead, presumably, of starting a religion.