Hey everyone,
So we talked today a little bit about Cat’s Cradle and certain implications of science in the novel. I explained the imagery of the albatross, from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, but there are many more images of warning that are evident in the novel. One thing that I just noticed while glancing through the novel was that in the pivotal apocalyptic chapter, “The grand Ah-Whoom” on pg. 216, the narrator states, “I was recalled from this dream by the cry of a darting bird above me. It seemed to be asking me what had happened. “Poo-phweet?”.
Now I know some of you will think I am just reading into this too much (cough…Juval), but I think Kurt put this imagery of a bird right at the moment the earth ends for a very specific reason. In that book I like to quote from, “Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut”, he mentions that he thinks writers should be like canaries in the coal mine. For those who don’t know, in coal mines during the early industrial revolution, miners would send canaries into mines and if there was a poisonous gas leak, the canaries would start chirping and warn the miners not to go down. So should writers be to society as a whole…
Anyways, I think it is important that Vonnegut includes the bird at this point in the story. It is also important that the narrator is also a writer, and that he is writing all of this down after the ice-nine has turned the world topsy turvy. In this case, Jonah sees it as a responsibility to write down his experiences so that it can be a warning for anyone who finds it. Paradoxically, it seems as though there is no hope for the human race at this point in the novel. But, the fact that the writer endeavours to write anyways, even though his words may not make any difference, is important in looking at Vonnegut’s approach to writing a novel so heavily burdened with questions that seemingly do not have answers.
If anyone has anything they would like to add of this, or wants to take this idea in a different direction….post away!
Tony