Cat’s Cradle By Kurt Vonnegut

Cat’s Cradle Mentions In Our Blog

If the cat found buried with a human on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus is any indicator, humans have been fascinated by, obsessed with, and affectionately herding cats as pets for 9500 years. Cats started showing up in cave art around 1950 BC, so it’s safe to say that humans and felines go way, waaay back.

History Of Opposition Toward Notable Satires

Because satire criticises in an ironic, essentially indirect way, it frequently escapes in a way more direct criticism might not. Periodically, however, it runs into serious opposition, and people in power who perceive themselves as attacked attempt to censor it or prosecute its practitioners. In a classic example, was persecuted by the .

1599 book ban

In 1599, the and the , whose offices had the function of licensing books for publication in England, issued a decree banning verse satire. The decree, now known as the , ordered the burning of certain volumes of satire by , , , and others it also required histories and plays to be specially approved by a member of the Queen’s , and it prohibited the future printing of satire in verse.

The motives for the ban are obscure, particularly since some of the books banned had been licensed by the same authorities less than a year earlier. Various scholars have argued that the target was obscenity, libel, or sedition. It seems likely that lingering anxiety about the controversy, in which the bishops themselves had employed satirists, played a role both and , two of the key figures in that controversy, suffered a complete ban on all their works. In the event, though, the ban was little enforced, even by the licensing authority itself.

21st-century polemics

On December 29, 2009, Samsung sued , and the for $1 million, claiming criminal defamation over a satirical column published on Christmas Day, 2009.

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The narrator of Cat’s Cradle, John, once set out to write a book, titled The Day the World Ended, about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. For purposes of research, he wrote to Newt Hoenikker, the midget son of Felix Hoenikker, the Nobel prize-winning physicist and one of the fathers of the atomic bomb. He asked Newt to describe what he remembered from the day the bomb devastated Hiroshima. Newt replied to say that he was only six years old when the bomb was dropped. He remembers playing with his toy trucks while his father played cat’s cradle with a piece of string.

Newt explained that Felix never showed any interest in people, so when Felix sat down to play with him that day, it was highly unusual. Felix looked so huge, ugly, and frightening when he tried to show Newt the cat’s cradle that Newt fled the house in tears to sit with his brother, Frank, who was making various bugs war against one another in Mason jars. Angela, Newt’s six-feet-tall sister, scolded Newt for hurting Felix’s feelings, but Newt continued to complain that Felix was ugly and scary. When she slapped Newt, Frank punched her in the stomach. Shortly after Newt replied to John’s letter, the newspapers reported Newt’s engagement to Zinka, a Russian midget dancer and rumored Soviet spy.

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Early Modern Western Satire

Direct via satire returned with a vengeance in the 16th century, when farcical texts such as the works of tackled more serious issues .

Two major satirists of Europe in the were and . Other examples of Renaissance satire include , , ‘s , ‘s , ‘s , and .

The writers thought of satire as related to the notoriously rude, coarse and sharp satyr play. Elizabethan “satire” therefore contains more straightforward abuse than subtle irony. The French pointed out in 1605 that satire in the Roman fashion was something altogether more civilised. Casaubon discovered and published Quintilian’s writing and presented the original meaning of the term , and the sense of wittiness became more important again. Seventeenth-century English satire once again aimed at the “amendment of vices” .

In the 1590s a new wave of verse satire broke with the publication of ‘s Virgidemiarum, six books of verse satires targeting everything from literary fads to corrupt noblemen. Although had already circulated satires in manuscript, Hall’s was the first real attempt in English at verse satire on the Juvenalian model. The success of his work combined with a national mood of disillusion in the last years of Elizabeth’s reign triggered an avalanche of satiremuch of it less conscious of classical models than Hall’s until the fashion was brought to an abrupt stop by censorship.

High School And Cornell

Vonnegut enrolled at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in 1936. While there, he played clarinet in the school band and became a co-editor for the Tuesday edition of the school newspaper, The Shortridge Echo. Vonnegut said that his tenure with the Echo allowed him to write for a large audiencehis fellow studentsrather than for a teacher, an experience, he said, was “fun and easy”. “It just turned out that I could write better than a lot of other people”, Vonnegut observed. “Each person has something he can do easily and can’t imagine why everybody else has so much trouble doing it.”

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Film Television And Theatrical Adaptations

• Portions of Cat’s Cradle were adapted in the television movie Between Time and Timbuktu , which presented elements from various works by Vonnegut.
• In 2005, the book was optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production company, Appian Way Productions. James V. Hart, screenwriter for the film Contact and his son Jake Hart were linked to the developing script.
• A calypso musical adaptation was presented by the Untitled Theater Company #61 in New York in 2008.
• Vonnegut collaborated with American composer Dave Soldier for a CD titled Ice-9 Ballads, featuring nine songs with lyrics taken from Cat’s Cradle. Vonnegut narrated his lyrics to Soldier’s music.
• A straight theatrical adaptation of the book was presented in Washington, DC in August and September 2010 by Longacre Lea Productions.
• On November 18, 2015, it was announced that Fargo TV series-creator Noah Hawley was adapting Cat’s Cradle as a limited series for the American TV channel FX. On August 13, 2021, it was announced that the project would not be moving forward.

Henry Holt And Company

Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in . One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by and . Currently, the company publishes in the fields of American and international , , and , , , and , as well as books for children’s literature. In the US, it operates under .

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Satire In Victorian England

Several satiric papers competed for the public’s attention in the and period, such as and .

Perhaps the most enduring examples of Victorian satire, however, are to be found in the of . In fact, in , a jester is given lines that paint a very neat picture of the method and purpose of the satirist, and might almost be taken as a statement of Gilbert’s own intent:

“I can set a braggart quailing with a quip,

The upstart I can wither with a whim

He may wear a merry laugh upon his lip,

But his laughter has an echo that is grim!”

Novelists such as often used passages of satiric writing in their treatment of social issues.

Continuing the tradition of Swiftian journalistic satire, was the most prominent writer of scathing “Letters to the Editor” of the . Famous in his day, he is now all but forgotten. His maternal grandfather was considered to be a possible candidate for the authorship of the letters. If this were true, we can read Osborne as following in his grandfather’s satiric “Letters to the Editor” path. Osborne’s satire was so bitter and biting that at one point he received a public censure from ‘s then Home Secretary Sir . Osborne wrote mostly in the Juvenalian mode over a wide range of topics mostly centered on British government’s and landlords’ mistreatment of poor farm workers and field laborers. He bitterly opposed the and was passionate on the subject of the British government’s botched response to the and the mistreatment of during the .

Social And Psychological Functions

Satire and in some cases have been regarded as the most effective source to understand a society, the oldest form of social study. They provide the keenest insights into a group’s , reveal its deepest values and tastes, and the society’s structures of power. Some authors have regarded satire as superior to non-comic and non-artistic disciplines like history or . In a prominent example from , philosopher , when asked by a friend for a book to understand Athenian society, referred him to the plays of .

Historically, satire has satisfied the popular to and the leading figures in politics, economy, religion and other prominent realms of . Satire confronts and the , playing as a public opinion counterweight to power , by challenging leaders and authorities. For instance, it forces administrations to clarify, amend or establish their policies. Satire’s job is to expose problems and contradictions, and it’s not obligated to solve them. set in the history of satire a prominent example of a satirist role as confronting public discourse.

For its nature and social role, satire has enjoyed in many societies a special freedom license to mock prominent individuals and institutions. The satiric impulse, and its ritualized expressions, carry out the function of resolving social tension. Institutions like the , by giving expression to the , represent a which re-establishes equilibrium and health in the , which are jeopardized by the .

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Later Career And Life

After Slaughterhouse-Five was published, Vonnegut embraced the fame and financial security that attended its release. He was hailed as a hero of the burgeoning anti-war movement in the United States, was invited to speak at numerous rallies, and gave college commencement addresses around the country. In addition to briefly teaching at Harvard University as a lecturer in creative writing in 1970, Vonnegut taught at the City College of New York as a distinguished professor during the 19731974 academic year. He was later elected vice president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and given honorary degrees by, among others, Indiana University and Bennington College. Vonnegut also wrote a play called Happy Birthday, Wanda June, which opened on October 7, 1970, at New York’s Theatre de Lys. Receiving mixed reviews, it closed on March 14, 1971. In 1972, Universal Pictures adapted Slaughterhouse-Five into a film, which the author said was “flawless”.

A Man Without a Country, 2005

Ancient And Modern India

Satire has played a prominent role in and , and is counted as one of the “” of literature in ancient books. With the commencement of printing of books in local language in the nineteenth century and especially after India’s freedom, this grew. Many of the works of , , , village minstrels, singers, poets, Dalit singers and current day stand up Indian comedians incorporate satire, usually ridiculing authoritarians, fundamentalists and incompetent people in power. In India, it has usually been used as a means of expression and an outlet for common people to express their anger against authoritarian entities. A popular custom in Northern India of “Bura na mano Holi hai” continues, in which comedians on the stage mock local people of importance .

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Family And Early Life

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born in Indianapolis on November 11, 1922, the youngest of three children of Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and his wife Edith . His older siblings were Bernard and Alice . He had descended from German immigrants who settled in the United States in the mid-19th century his paternal great-grandfather, Clemens Vonnegut, settled in Indianapolis and founded the Vonnegut Hardware Company. His father and grandfather Bernard were architects the architecture firm under Kurt Sr. designed such buildings as Das Deutsche Haus , the Indiana headquarters of the Bell Telephone Company, and the Fletcher Trust Building. Vonnegut’s mother was born into Indianapolis high society, as her family, the Liebers, were among the wealthiest in the city with their fortune deriving from ownership of a successful brewery.