Cat's Cradle viewpoint to COVID times.

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”

This statement envelops the satiric postmodern subjects of unadulterated truth in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle: a book written during a time of war (pre Second world war). There are a few postmodern ideas Vonnegut brings in this novel. First is the possibility of truth, which he caricatures however the religion Bokononism. Second, is progress and how society sees that progress just betters humanity, and brings it favorable luck. The third idea is the idea of supreme information and accomplishing it through science and experimentation, which identifies with the subjects of progress through his utilization spoof ( or to a large extent, a proof of concept for the real world).

For one thing, what is postmodernism? Well, look at it as the post-COVID business world and pre-COVID narrative. Cat's Cradle is an exceptionally postmodern book since it spoofs the narrative of the essential fact of the matter and the cutting edge thoughts of progress. Vonnegut utilizes Cat's Cradle to parody the thoughts society holds about advancement and how it is accomplished through the quest for truth; the quest for information increased through science and experimentation. Society appears to accept that it can better itself through acquiring experimental, logical information about our general surroundings. This is a conviction of Pre-COVID times driven by Modernism. This conviction is that the more man thinks about the idea of how things work or the more information society gets, the happier it is. This is a cutting edge thought which originates from the Enlightenment Era otherwise called the Age of Reason.

“Probably the main value of the age, besides reason, was the idea of progress.”

Be that as it may, this is a conviction exceptionally reprimanded by the standards of Postmodernism just as by Vonnegut. An eminent case of postmodernism's scrutinizing of this cutting edge imitation is the formation of the nuclear bomb that the novel talks about. Evidently the movement of society into the domains of science, disclosure, and information, drives the world to the ever-approaching objective of an ideal world. Anyway, the main advantage one of society's most prominent logical revelations, ( in the book that's a nuclear bomb), was the limit and repercussions of endings hundreds of thousands of lives. So does this quest for science, of information, of truth, truly lead society to the bettering of humankind? Vonnegut utilizes this model in Cat's Cradle. This is one of the attributes of the novel which makes it a postmodern, or rather we may call it a Post-COVID world masterpiece.

Vonnegut utilizes the plot of Cat's Cradle to make a postmodern spoof of how science truly doesn't prompt a perfect world. In one part of the novel, the leader of San Lorenzo, Papa experiences a baffling affliction, and just before passing out he says " 'You,' he said to Frank hoarsely, 'you - Franklin Hoenikker - you will be the next President of San Lorenzo. Science - you have science. Science is the strongest thing there is.' 'Science' said 'Papa' 'Ice' ". 

He chooses to make Frank Hoenikker the new leader of San Lorenzo in light of the fact that he is about to kick the bucket. He picks Frank since he is aware of his ownership of Ice-Nine( the Nuclear Bomb) that by the way happens to be the best and most up to date logical disclosure of humankind in the novel. The parody is this: Papa assumes Frank would be the best alternative for President since he has science; Ice-Nine. Papa's thoughts regarding how science betters society mirror the Modern thought of the idea. In any case, later in the novel, the reader finds that Ice-Nine brings the apocalypse. Vonnegut's parody mirrors the postmodern idea that seeking after an ideal world through science is a flippant interest in light of the fact that the further humanity jumps into logical revelation, the more dangerous and destructive society becomes.

Bokononism : the religion

Vonnegut utilizes a religion he made for the novel called Bokononism to pass on society's confusion about the significance or rather usefulness of truth. The religion was devised as one way of establishing San Lorenzo ( an island, in the book) as a utopian society. Bokononism is a religion that relates to its own wrongness. It celebrates in tolerating that its beliefs are false. Bokononists see that religion doesn't need to be consistent with being valuable. The religion shows its adherents that the beliefs of a religion can be helpful to oneself without them being founded on extreme truth. In the novel, Vonnegut utilizes the island of San Lorenzo to depict how lies can help humanity more than truth. This is pretty much in resonance with the current COVID situation.

"Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. The truth was the enemy of the people because the truth was so terrible"

The island is incredibly neediness stricken and they have no methods for building the island's economy or regular assets to make it an island worth living on. So as opposed to endeavoring to do as such, the residents trust in the expectation which their religion can bring them, whether or not it's actual or not. It can bring them expectation and joy in any case. This is a postmodern, subject since it shows how attaining knowledge of the truth, doesn't generally better society in all cases, in actuality for this situation truth turns into the very direct opposite of advantage. From a post COVID point of view, it is expected that picking up information prompts beneficial things and that seeing beyond failures brings humankind one step nearer to an ideal world. Anyway from a postmodern viewpoint, in the model the standpoint of Vonnegut's Bokonism, this truth truly drives society no more like an ideal society, rather it really causes deviation from it.

Vonnegut utilizes Bokononism to resemble the postmodern thought of there can't be one person who knows everything. This is a postmodern thought: we are starting to understand that we live in a universe of man-made signs and symbols and have started to mess with those signs and symbols entertainingly and incidentally so we are not oppressed to them. This regularly implies tolerating nature yet having an amusing mentality towards it. Bokononism is an ideal case of this sort of incongruity.

For instance, take this conversation that happens early in the novel as a reference, where they talk about the secret of life :

’ What is the secret of life?’ I asked.

‘I forget,’ said Sandra.

‘Protein,’ the bartender declared. ‘They found something out about protein.”

‘Yeah,’ said Sandra, “that’s it.”

One of Bokononism‘s central premises, however, is that it is a ―collection of harmful untruths which one lives by. All the characters in the book practice intensely (to the point of craziness) the anecdotal religion of Bokononism, a religion that gladly expresses that it is based on only lies. However, Bokononism shockingly offers genuinely necessary compassion and happiness in the confusion of our lives. The religion was established by an insane man named Bokonon, who announces gladly,

“I made up lies

So that they all fit nice,

And I made this sad world

A par-a-dise.”

Bokonon himself is regularly quoted saying that everything he says is a lie, a paradoxical statement typical of the confusing and contradictory nature of Bokononism.

The World we know now.

Vonnegut's comical inclination is straightforwardly in play here, he plays with the possibility that finding the mystery of life would lead society to an impetus of amazing quality into depths of progression never observed. Be that as it may, the revelation of "the secret of life" in Cat's Cradle, leads to nothing. Thus Vonnegut‘s main use for Bokononism is not simply to debunk science, but also religion itself as he forms a kind of ―double-critique. Vonnegut utilizes postmodern incongruity to show that information doesn't generally mean advancement, and that progress isn't generally helpful. The author utilizes this humourous feeling of incongruity all through the whole novel, and he never does it without it having a postmodern curve. Later in the novel, a few characters are discussing science and how great and wonderful it is. However, Vonnegut makes a point to utilize "wonderful" satirically.

Cat's Cradle is a novel about the end of the world. This correlates with the cold war which involved nuclear weapons that with the push of the button could destroy the world. Ice nine is Kurt Vonnegut's fictional version of this concept. Throughout Cat’s Cradle, there is significant interplay between science and religion as two predominant ways of thinking, or worldviews. The idea of ending the world is the same through ice-nine, however, the way it is done is different. Instead of killing the population with radioactivity, Vonnegut's version turns all water to solid.

Relevance to COVID times?

With COVID-19 arriving at in excess of 3,000,000 cases and India hitting in excess of 100,000 affirmed cases, it's not very hard to proclaim this as the world's end. Remaining normal is no simple task during lockdown and assurance is out of sight to arrive at when you wake up the following day to see a huge number of new cases. 

Cat's Cradle – written amidst the Cold War fears – recounts a comparable apocalypse debacle. The deadly nuclear-like weapon ice-nine that freezes any material it comes into contact with and contacting an individual solidified by ice-nine immediately freezes you. Ice-nine could freeze all the seas on the planet in a brief moment and devastate mankind as we probably are aware of it.

But none of the characters in the novel care.

None of the characters are stressed over the apocalypse, a world that has no reason, a world that has no God, a world that was good for nothing in any case. The characters rather accept the end of the world as a chance to giggle at life's absurdities. Felix Hoenikker, the character who is a nobel laureate in material science, father of the nuclear bomb, inventor of ice-nine, asks immaturely, totally uninformed: 

"What is God? What is love?"

At the point when the nuclear bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, Hoenikker was relaxed playing with strings like a kid, making a cat's cradle between his fingers. Be that as it may, there is "no damn cat, and no damn cradle", just strings between someone's hands. Correspondingly, Vonnegut contends, which means is a falsehood, and God has the right to be chuckled at. What lies toward the apocalypse in Cat's Cradle is no serious philosophical rumination. There is no importance. Nothing. As Newt Hoenikker puts it,

“Man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing.”

Life is hilarious for Vonnegut, and he invites the reader for a wild ride full of quotable moments, to laugh despite horrors, smile when you get robbed, and most importantly, just sit back as the entire world goes out with a bang. Nothing in this book is real but a metaphor. The author Kurt Vonnegut ,is recognized as the manipulator of words and worlds. He loves to rearrange the issues of fiction, breaking it down into its essential constituents and permitting the image to explain on its own for the reader. He did likewise with all his stories. Basic, yet in some cases fantastical, stories told persuasively, surrendering the rest over to the reader.