Cat's Cradle

As the novel opens, John plans to write a “factual” book about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. By the end of the novel, John has become a Bokononist, with a preference for “bittersweet lies,” and it is this latter version of John that writes Cat’s Cradle. To reinforce the point, an epigraph before Chapter 1 reads, “Nothing in this book is true” (vii). Like Bokonon, who openly admits that his teachings are false, Cat’s Cradle frequently draws attention to its own narrative nature and structure, making it an example of metafiction; the novel’s conclusion even describes where John’s completed manuscript is to be placed, and the text stops at the moment just before John’s anticipated death, suggesting he was then unable to add anything.

Drawing evidence and examples from throughout the novel, analyze the significance of Vonnegut’s decision to present Cat’s Cradle as metafiction. Why might Vonnegut have chosen to present this story from such a perspective? How much of the text’s meaning and impact would be lost or changed if he had instead presented this story from a more generic, third-person perspective, or even if he kept John as narrator but merely had him speak in first person present tense instead of looking back as a chronicler of history? Be sure to link your analysis to the novel’s major themes, such as The Persistence of Human Foolishness.