Cat's Cradle

The Lyotard and Postmoderism introduction includes Ihab Hassan’s table of differences between Modernism and Postmodernism. Though he lists a number of defining characteristics, one difference that relates the most to Cat’s Cradle is the comparison between design and chance.  Modernism favors the focus on the purposeful design of all aspects of the universe.  This supports the notion of religion because such religions usually depict one almighty creator becomes the “designer” of everything that occurs.  This creator defines the reason and meaning to life; everything that happens is due to this creator’s will and purpose. 

 I like the whole concept of postmodernism and its somewhat rough and self-gratifying edges which is pretty much Cat’s Cradle. I like to compare it to Frank Gehry’s sketches, at first they just seem like random lines and squiggles, but instead they turn out to be this beautifully composed drawings of what will become a breathtaking piece of architecture… art, like Pablo Picasso once said “Art is the lie that tells the truth,”  it is misleading yet straightforward at the same timei. Just what Bokonon says “all of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” Cat’s Cradle might seem like just a bunch of chapters strewn together that sort of fits, but upon looking at it as a whole the purpose of it comes across, just like Gehry’s sketches.

Cat’s Cradle breaks away from the traditional methods of writing; it defies the norm of the literary works before it. It separates itself from the “normal” structure and dives into literary anarchy. Small nonsensical chapters make up this delicate work of literature. The whole book is pretty much the epitome of postmodernism, even the title itself takes upon the sort of disorder of postmodernism as a whole. There’s “no damn cat, no damn cradle,” it is all just perception and can in reality be anything we want it to be, just like Newt’s painting which was perceived as a cat’s cradle and as hell. Vonnegut also implies the instability of a true religion with an ultimate “designer” of the universe.  Instead, Vonnegut argues for the concept of chance that defines the reason to life, and this supports the idea of Postmodernism.