Cat’s Cradle (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- First Published: 1963
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Science fiction
- Time of Work: The early 1960’s
- Setting: Ilium, New York, and the Caribbean Republic of San Lorenzo
- Genres: Long fiction, Fable, Science fiction, Fantasy, Apocalyptic and catastrophe fiction
- Subjects: 1960’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Traveling or travelers, Philosophy or philosophers, Caribbean, Wit or humor, End of the world, Atomic bomb, Ants, Ice, Inventions or inventors
- Locales: Ilium, NY, San Lorenzo, Caribbean
Characters Discussed
John, the narrator. John, a Cornell- educated journalist, spends the course of the book interviewing the friends and children of Dr. Felix Hoenikker for a book about the day the atom bomb was dropped. John is always perfectly gracious and objective in his interviews, even when his subjects are hostile and impute ulterior motives to his writing. His research takes him to the island nation of San Lorenzo, where he unintentionally becomes president and witnesses the unleashing of ice-nine, which freezes the world.
Dr. Felix Hoenikker, a Nobel Prize-...
[The entire page is 1037 words long]
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