Yeah. They're adorable. Especially mine!
I loved the socratic circles this past week. I especially enjoyed how involved my group was in the discussion, and how many topics that were touched on between the two. Any questions that I had were answered with such interesting and different perspectives from my peers, so it was awesome to see. Both discussions have given me a lot of interesting points to take away with me that I will definitely keep in mind when it comes time to write an essay about the novel. We need to do those more often, because I always get a lot out of them!
Anyway, OF COURSE the two can be compared; Cat's Cradle and postmodernism go together like white on rice. Kind of.
Postmodernism is, as I'm sure you can tell, a movement that happened after modernism, in the 18th century. The movment rejects all ideals of the modern times. Such ideas include the idea of a "center," which is instead rejected, along with an embrace of chaos, rather than a "grand narrative." Postmodernism recognizes how beautifully diverse art, literature, language, and culture are, and encourages others to do so as well. So, logically, the movement has transcended amongst artists and people alike.
When viewing Cat's Cradle through a postmodern lens, many similarities between the two come to mind. I will type a few of them for funsies.
The structure of the chapter titles can be paralleled with postmodernism, with "A Nice Midget" and "O.K., Mom," being such unusual choices. This choice in titles is a complete rejection of the modern formally written titles. Moreover, the amount of chapters within the novel (125) and the short length of the book suggest that Vonnegut is disregarding the previously conceived notion that in order to be considered a ground-breaking novel, chapters should be lengthy and readers shouldn't be able to read it within a few days. Yeah, well, Vonnegut proved all of those people wrong! Why am I so passionate? Maybe because this book isn't as intensely depressing as the other ones. It's a little bit of a lighter read, and I find it more interesting than the others we've read thus far. I'll let my passion live on...
Vonnegut's creation of Bokononism, the most ridiculously complicated religion in the world, is one that makes a powerful, postmodern comment on religion in society. His depiction of Bokonoism suggests that religion itself is an endless cycle of searching for a truth that won't ever be found, making his point very clear in a conversation where the title of a training camp for soldiers, "Fort Jesus," was questioned, in which Stanley replied, "'Sure. Why not?'" In the Christian society, Jesus Christ is the "Way, Truth, and Life," and no one will recieve eternity in Heaven if he does not believe in Jesus and what He did in order to save those said Christians from a life of sin. So, Jesus is the center of that religion, with every aspect of Christian life revolving around Him, while Vonnegut's satirical tone suggests a completely postmodern rejection of a religious "center." His parallels between Bokononism and Christianity depict that there is no Absolute Truth, and his ironic implications show his thoughts about a search for that Truth is a waste of time, which is completely opposite of the modern acceptance that there is nothing but Absolute Truth, and that every one should accept that.
These are just a few examples of things that I saw in Cat's Cradle through a postmodern lens. I'd write more, but I want to go watch the Glee Christmas Special, because I didn't get to earlier this week. So bye!
In short: cats are precious, I want more socratic circles, postmodernism and Cat's Cradle are besties, and I'm a gLeek.
POSTMODERNISM, FTW! Just kidding.
WINTER BREAK, FTW!
One more week.
I. can. do. this.
Hey Taylor, really great posting. You hit all the right points in the prompt and discussed evidence in the novel that made for some good evidence. Also, good defining of Post-Modernism; it was really detailed and summed up the packets we were given perfectly. Another thing I liked about your post is that you actually went over all the face-value and apparent Post-Modernistic features of the novel, (e.g. the number of chapters, etc.) Also, I felt that you did a pretty good job of using evidence that was located all over the book showing a careful reading of the novel. There are only a couple of things I would have liked to have seen though. First, I still believe that you could have written about more about the pieces of evidence in the novel that further examine Vonnegut's meaning; primarily the major signs of his meaning. The"Jesus Christ" training camp is one of them but there are some even more potent one's. I think personally, the best evidence of this is the concepts behind the Cat's Cradle itself and how it can apply to the many subjects Vonnegut attacks in his novel. Secondly, I think you can express the concept that everything is a lie; being that there are no absolute truths is a part of it but, only a part. So I just ask if you can maybe delve a little deeper into Vonnegut's direct meaning and continue from there and thus you have some good subjects for your essay.
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