History Literature / CatsCradle

'''Tropes in this book include:'''

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: "Papa" Monzano, twice. The first time [[spoiler: when he commits suicide by swallowing the ice-nine, dramatically raising the risk of it getting into the world's water supply]], and the second time [[spoiler: when the ceremony arranged by him prior to his death results in an airplane crashing into his home and sending his ice-nine-infected corpse tumbling into the sea.]]

* MarriedToTheJob: The only thing that interests Felix Hoenikker is his scientific work. He barely even notices his wife and children. Once, after a breakfast, he gave his wife a tip.

* [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer Even The Gays Want Her]]

* HumansAreBastards

* DepopulationBomb

* BittersweetEnding

* BananaRepublic

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Dr. Felix Hoenikker.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Mona, after she sees that everything was destroyed by Ice-Nine. The ending ''very'' strongly implies the state of the world drives the narrator to suicide as well.]]

* [[spoiler:DrivenToSuicide: The ending ''very'' strongly implies the state of the world drives the narrator to suicide.]]

* ScienceIsBad: Or at least, science for it's own sake is bad, because it doesn't know or really care about the consequences of what it creates.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: "Papa" Monzano, twice. The first time [[spoiler: when he commits suicide by swallowing the ice-nine, dramatically raising the risk of it getting into the world's water supply]] and the second time [[spoiler: when the ceremony arranged by him prior to his death results in an airplane crashing into his home and sending his ice-nine-infected corpse tumbling into the sea.]]

* MundaneUtility: As revolutionary (and potential destructive) as ice-nine is, it was only created so that American soldiers wouldn't have to spend so much time slogging through the mud and getting their boots dirty. [[spoiler: It eventually ends up wiping out all life on Earth. Whoops...]]

* CrapsackWorld: Starts bad, [[ItGotWorse gets worse]].

* ArtisticLicenseChemistry: Ice-nine. Formed of ordinary oxygen and hydrogen, it is able to freeze all liquid water that it touches, into identical crystals of ice-nine via chain-reaction—eventually freezing all water on Earth. This is impossible due to the simple state of hydrogen-bonds that form liquid [=H2O=] and ice, preventing any such strange isomer-crystal.
** There are however crystals that can react that way, just not water.
*** But that was the point, water doesn't work that way on it's own (even melted Ice-Nine will behave like ordinary water), but the Ice-Nine crystal is supposed to "teach" any liquid water it comes in contact with to freeze as Ice-Nine.
** Scientists have actually found new ways for water molecules to arrange themselves in crystals and have named these forms with the same convention (Ice-One, Ice-Two, etc). So there is an ACTUAL Ice-Nine at this point, but neither it nor any of the other man-made ice-crystal formations have the apocalyptic features of the one in the book.

* BelievingTheirOwnLies: Bokonon and Earl [=McCabe=], rulers of the fictional West Indian country San Lorenzo, create a new religion, Bokononism, in order to ease the suffering of the people. To increase the new religion's appeal to the masses by giving them some entertaining drama, [=McCabe=] outlaws its practice upon pain of death (while practicing it in secret), whereupon Bokonon "flees" into the jungle, a "wanted" man. Over time, however, the two men become so habituated to their respective roles in the charade that they go insane and become enemies for real. [[spoiler: Though when "Papa" Monzano (Mc Cabe's successor) dies, he rejects the Christian Last Rites - having declared Christianity the official religion of San Lorenzo - because "I have always been a Bokononist."]]

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Dr. Felix Hoenikker

''Cat's Cradle'' is a 1963 novel by KurtVonnegut. The protagonist, who introduces himself to us in the [[PointOfView first person narration]] as simply "John", begins the story intending to write a book about the atomic bomb, and in his research he comes to learn about the family of one of the chief scientists who created it: Dr. Felix Hoenikker. His research also uncovers the possibility that the man went on to create something else that could wipe out all life on Earth. Some time afterwards, John winds up on the Caribbean island of [[BananaRepublic San Lorenzo]], where he meets all three of Dr. Hoenikker's children, as well as the woman of his dreams. He also learns about the history of the island, and a man known as Bokonon, who has created a strange religion that almost every resident of the nation seems to practice, despite it being outlawed by the country's eccentric military dictatorship.

* StealthPun: Boko-maru, the only real ritual of the Bokononists, is described as a meeting of '''souls'''. It is performed by having the two participants remove their footwear, and then [[FetishFuel press the]] '''[[FetishFuel soles]]''' [[FetishFuel of their feet together]].

* MagnumOpus: This or ''SlaughterhouseFive''.

* FetishFuel: A foot fetishist would probably really dig the Bokonist practice of Boku-maru (not that a fetish is strictly necessary)

* MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds: Dr. Hoenikker is not a CompleteMonster. Rather, he is completely oblivious to the fact that his puttering around in the lab inventing whatever pops into his head might have undesirable consequences, and if somebody were to point this out to him he seems to lack the ability to understand the seriousness of it or to care.