The Story Archive

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut · 1963 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

A writer setting out to record what important Americans were doing the day Hiroshima was bombed goes looking for the children of the physicist who fathered the bomb, and learns the man left behind something with a wider application. The trail leads to a Caribbean dictatorship whose only religion is founded on lies its own prophet cheerfully admits are lies. The University of Chicago, which had rejected Vonnegut's anthropology thesis, later accepted this book in its place.

Open Cat's Cradle in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Genre
Science FictionSatireComedy
Theme
Faith & DoubtExistential AbsurdityPower & CorruptionDeath & MortalityAmbition & Hubris
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanTricksterCreator
Plot structure
EpisodicFrame NarrativeIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The IslandWinterThe Book / Manuscript
Conflict
vs Technologyvs Fate / Gods
Mode / tone
SatiricalAbsurdistIronic
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues