History Literature / CatsCradle

* 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 in the real world due to the simple state of hydrogen-bonds that form liquid [=H2O=] and ice, preventing any such strange isomer-crystal. There are crystals that can react that way, just not water; the ice-nine crystal is supposed to "teach" any liquid water it comes in contact with to freeze as ice-nine.

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* UnwittingPawn: Newt and Angela both get played like violins in the back-story by [[spoiler: agents of the U.S. and Soviet governments]] looking to get control of some Ice-Nine.

** FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Lorenzo is quite obviously based on RealLife Haiti - their dialectal speech, poverty, tyrannical rule, economy based on sugar, and also by their glimpse of history (San Lorenzo had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Christophe a mad Emperor]] who built [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadelle_Laferrière a gigantic and useless citadel]]). Though Haiti is also briefly mentioned in the novel.

* MinovskyPhysics

* SacredScripture: The ''Books of Bokonon'', which start with the handy warning: "All of the true facts I am about to tell you are shameless lies."

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

* DarkSkinnedBlonde: Mona.

-->''And I would climb to the top of Mount [=McCabe=] and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow, and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men and I would make a statue of myself lying on my back, grinning horribly and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.''

* ArcWords: Bokononism has a lot of them. Wiki/ThatOtherWiki has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle#Terms_introduced_in_the_novel full list]].

* 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.]]

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Bokonon tells the protagonist what he would do if he were "a younger man"...such as the protagonist. It is heavily implied that John does exactly what Bokonon says. We know for a fact that he does part of it by the end of the book.

* UnwittingPawn: Newt and Angela both get played like violins in the back-story by people looking to get control of some Ice-Nine.

* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: People don't understand why Emily Hoenikker, who was a very beautiful and popular woman, married Felix, who only cared about science and barely noticed her.

* AllCrimesAreEqual: The island of San Lorenzo has only one punishment for any crime: death by impalement on a giant hook.

** FantasyCounterpartCulture: San Lorenzo is quite obviously based on RealLife Haiti - their dialectal speech, poverty, tyrannical rule, economy based on sugar, and also by their glimpse of history (San Lorenzo had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Christophe a mad Emperor]] who built [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadelle_Laferrière a gigantic and useless citadel]]).

* 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."]]

* InMysteriousWays: The Bokononist religion says that all living beings are arranged by God in groups called a ''karass'', arranged around a person or object called a ''wampeter'' (in this case, ice-nine), in order to advance the divine will. The members of a ''karass'' may never even know each other, and their work may overlap in bizarre, coincidental ways, but they work together for a single purpose that they'll never know.

* SpoilerCover: As seen above.