Utopia in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

Entezam, Mahtab; Abbasi, Pyeaam

doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.42.1

ILSHS > Volume 42 > Utopia in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

< Back to Volume

Utopia in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle

Full Text PDF

Abstract:

Utopia is a universal concept, as manifested by the fact that it has attracted readers of five centuries and has influenced numerous writers. It is obvious that people, recognizing the abundant stupidities, corruptions, and injustice prevalent in their society, should attempt to plan a better system for living together. Whether they can reach such a society or not is the fundamental question found in most Vonnegut’s works. The utopian schemes in Vonnegut’s works such as the settlement of San Lorenzo in Cat’s Cradle, almost always backfire, often bringing about more problems than they promise to solve. Therefore, in this paper, it is aimed to emphasize Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle regarding the concepts of utopia and dystopia as well as apocalyptical notions. Apocalypse can be investigated in Cat’s Cradle and it gives a serious quality to Vonnegut’s work. The emptiness of mere survival is painfully described in Cat's Cradle, in which the earth is locked in frozen death.

Info:

Periodical:

International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (Volume 42)

Pages:

1-11

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ILSHS.42.1

Citation:

M. Entezam and P. Abbasi, "Utopia in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle", International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, Vol. 42, pp. 1-11, 2015

Online since:

October 2014

Authors:

Mahtab Entezam, Pyeaam Abbasi

Keywords:

Apocalypse, Cat’s Cradle, Dystopia, Kurt Vonnegut, Utopia

Export:

RIS, BibTeX, Text

Distribution:

Open Access

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References:

Atwood, Margaret. Writing Utopia., Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, personal Prose: 1983-2005. New York: Carroll, (2005).

Bloom, Harold. Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Kurt Vonnegut. Bloom's Literary Criticism, New York NY 10001, 2009. 2.

Brown, Norman. O. Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History. Wesleyan University Press, 1956. 216.

Hedges, Chris. I Don't Believe in Atheists. New York: Free, (2008).

Keniston, Kenneth. Young Radicals: Notes on Committed Youth. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1968. 233.

Klinkowitz, Jerome. Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary American Fiction. Durham: Duke UP, (1992).

Kovel, Joel. Against the State of Nuclear Terror. Boston, (1984).

Lillian R. Furst, The Romantic Hero, or Is He an Anti-Hero?, in Studies in the Literary Imagination, ed. Lilian R. Furst and James D. Wilson (Special Journal Issue), 9 (Spring 1976): 53-69, 53.

Morse, David E. We Are Marching to Utopia: Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano., The Utopian Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twentieth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Ed. Martha Bartter. Westport: Greenwood, 2004. 23-32.

Morse, Ryan. Fantasies and Foma: Utopian Concepts in the Literature of Marcuse and Vonnegut., University of Delaware, 2012. 31.

Sayre, Robert. F. Autobiography and Images of Utopia., Salmagundi, No. 19 (spring 1972), 19.

Scholes, Robert. 'Mithridates, he died old: Black Humor and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Hollins Critic, 3. 1966. 8.

Schulz, Max F. The Unconfirmed Thesis: Kurt Vonnegut, Black Humor, and Contemporary Art., Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 1971: 5-28.

Vanderbilt, Kermit. Kurt Vonnegut's American Nightmares and Utopias., The Utopian Vision: Seven Essays on the Quincentennial of Sir Thomas More. Ed. E. D. S. Sullivan. San Diego: San Diego University Press, 1983. 138-173.

Vonnegut Kurt Jr., Cat's Cradle. New York: Dell, (1963).

Vonnegut Kurt Jr., Palm Sunday. London, 1981. 163.

Waskow, Arthur. These Holy Soarks: the Rebirth of the Jwish People. San Francisco: Haper and Row, 1983. 55. ( Received 21 September 2014; accepted 02 October 2014 ).

Show More Hide

Cited By:

This article has no citations.