1) To what extent are Cat's Cradle and Dr. Strangelove works of the same cultural moment? What do these texts teach us about Americans' changing perceptions of the Cold War in the 1960s?
2) A broad definition of black humor is "to poke fun at subjects considered deadly serious or even taboo by some." According to this definition, Cat's Cradle and Dr. Strangelove are both texts that engage in black humor. As works of black humor, what do Cat's Cradle and Dr. Strangelove have in common? How are they different?
Keep in mind Vonnegut scholar Cathy Cupitt's definition of black humor, in which she includes the following: "absurdity, ironic detachment; opposing moral views held in equipoise, humanity's lack of a sense of purpose in the unpredictable nuclear age, the realisation of the complexity of moral and aesthetic experience which affects the individual's ability to choose a course of action; and a playing with the reader's ideas of reality."
3) Which of the conventions of black humor listed above apply best to Dr. Strangelove? In particular, how important are absurdity and ironic detachment to the effectiveness of the film?
4) How is nuclear technology represented in the film? How is the defense establishment represented? How is the U.S.-Soviet conflict represented?
5) Smoodin discusses the importance of the cowboy metaphor in The Thing from Another World. How does the cowboy metaphor work differently in Dr. Strangelove?
6) Both Dr. Strangelove and Cat's Cradle make significant references back to World War II and Nazism. In each case, how are such references significant? How do they contribute to each text's commentary on Cold War politics?
7) Last time, we began to discuss how Vonnegut holds the opposing belief systems of science and religion in equipoise. Let's continue to discuss to discuss the tension between science and Bokononism in the text. What kind of a religion is Bokononism, and how does it compensate its practitioners for the uncertainties of a nuclear age?
8) Last time, we also began to discuss the question of whether individuals in Cat's Cradle have any control over their destinies. What new insights, derived from our reading of later sections of the novel, can we bring to this question?
9) Do individuals control their destiny in Dr. Strangelove?
10) What is the signficance of Ice-Nine? What is the significance of the Doomsday Machine? What do these symbols reveal about American technological imaginings in the early 1960s?
PASSAGES
"McCabe and Johnson dreamed of making San Lorenzo a Utopia.
"To this end, McCabe overhauled the economy and the laws.
"Johnson designed a new religion."
Castle quoted the "Calypsos" again:
I wanted all thingsTo seem to make some sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise. (127)
"McCabe and Bokonon did not succeed in raising what is generally thought of as the standard of living," said Castle. "The truth was that life was short and brutish and mean as ever.
"But people didn't have to pay as much attention to the awfult ruth. As the living legend of the cruel tyrant in the city adn the gentle holy man in the jungle grew, so, too, did the happiness of the people grow. They were all employed full time as actors in a play they understood, that any human being anywhere could understand and applaud."
"So life became a work of art," I marveled.
"Yes. There was only one trouble with it."
"Oh?"
"The drama was very tough on the souls of the two main actors, McCabe and Bokonon. As young men, they had been pretty much alike, had both been half-angel, half-pirate.
"But the drama demanded that the pirate half of Bokonon and the angel half of McCabe wither away. . . They both became, for all practical purposes, insane."
Castle crooked the finger of his left hand. "And then, people really did start dying on the hy-u-o-ook-kuh." (175)
What is sacred to Bokononists?" I asked after a while.
"Not even God, as near as I can tell."
"Nothing?"
"Just one thing."
Imade some guesses. "The ocean? The sun?"
"Man," said Frank. "That's all. Just man." (211)
"He teaches the people lies and lies and lies. Kill him and teach the people truth."
"Yessir."
"You and Hoenikker, you teach them science."
"Yessir, we will," I promised.
"Science is magic that works."
He fell silent, relaxed, closed his eyes. And he then he whispered, "Last rites." (218)
"Papa" Monzano receives Bokononist last rites in Chapter 99.
And I realized with chagrin that my agreeing to be boss had freed Frank to do what he wanted to do more than anything else, to do what his father had done: to receive honors and creature comforts while escaping human responsibilities. He was accomplishing this by going down a spiritual oubliette. (224-225)
But then I understood that a millenium would have to offer somehting more than a holy man in a position of power, that there would have to be plenty of good things to eat, too, and nice places to live for all, and good schools and good health and good times for all, and work for all who wanted it -- things Bokonon and I were in no position to provide.
So good and evil had to remain separate; good in the jungle, and evil in the palace. Whatever entertainment there was in that was about all we had to give the people. (226)
I excused myself and rejoined the Crosbys.
Frank Hoenikker was with them, explaining who Bokonon was and what he was against. "He's against science."
"How can anybody in his right mind be against science?" asked Crosby.
"I'd be dead now if it wasn't for penicillin," said Hazel. "And so would my mother."
"How old iis your mother?" I inquired.
"A hundred and six. Isn't that wonderful?"
"It certainly is," I agreed.
"And I'd be a widow, too, if it wasn't for the medicine they gave my husband that time," said Hazel. She had to ask her husband the name of the medicine. "Honey, what was the name of that stuff that saved your life that time?"
"Sulfathiazole."
And I made the mistake of taking an albatross canape from a passing tray. (234-235)
"Papa" Monzano was the first man in history to die of ice-nine.
I record that fact for whatever it may be worth. "Write it all down," Bokonon tells is. What he is really telling us, of course, is how futile it is to write or read histories. "Without accurate records of the past, how can men and women be expected to avoid making serious mistakes in the future?" he asks ironically.
So again: "Papa" Monzano was the first man in history to die of ice-nine. (237)
Frank . . . . snapped his fingers. I could see him dissociating himself from the causes of the mess; identifying himself, with growing pride and energy, with the purifiers, the world-savers, the cleaners-up. . .
Frank was so charged with technical thinking now that he was practically tap dancing to the music of his fingers. (242)
Frank pried his sister's hand from himself. His glassy smile went away and he turned smeeringly nasty for a moment--a moment in which he told her with all possible contempt, "I bought myself a job, just the way you bought yourself a tomcat husband, just the way Newt bought himself a week on Cape Cod with a Russian midget!"
The glassy smile returned.
Frank left; and he slammed the door. (243)
"Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off all our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns." (254)
We humans separated; fled my shattered battlements; tumbled down staircases on the the landward side.
Only H. Lowe Crosby and his Hazel cried out. "American! American!" they cried, as though tornadoes were interested in the granfalloons to which their victims belonged. (262)
"Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma!"
Foma, of course, are lies.
And then I read this:
In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.
And God said, "Let us make living creatures out of mud, so the Mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.
"Everyhting must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man.
"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.
And he went away.
I thought this was trash.
"Of course it's trash!" says Bokonon. (265)
"I do not see him," said Mona mildly. She wasn't depressed or angry. In fact, she seemed to verge onlaughter. "He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless." (273)
I called Bokonon a jigaboo bastard, and I changed the subject again. I spoke of meaningful, individual heroic acts. I praised in particular the way in whcih Julian Castle and his son had chosen to die. While the tornadoes still raged, they had set out on foot for the House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle to give whatever hope and mercy was theirs to give, And I saw magnificence in the way poor Angela had died, too. She had picked up a clarinet in the ruins of Bolivar and had begun to play it at once, without concerning herself as to whether the nouthpiece might be contaminated with ice-nine.
"Soft pipes, play on," I murmured huskily.
"Well, maybe you can find some neat way to die, too," said Newt.
It was a Bokononist thing to say. (285)