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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cat’s Cradle, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Morality
Religion
Governance, Politics, and Nationhood
Absurdity and Meaninglessness
Summary
Analysis
An older bartender comes over and tells John what he was doing on the day the bomb was dropped. He was working in the bar, and made someone a cocktail called “End of the World Delight.” A scientist from Dr. Hoenikker’s lab came in, saying he was going to resign as “anything a scientist worked on was sure to wind up as a weapon, one way or another.”
This unnamed scientist is the antithesis of Hoenikker and Breed; he resigns because the link between science and morality is all too obvious. Of course, this makes him an outsider. The cocktail name is in keeping with the absurdist trope of the end-of-times running throughout the novel.
Themes
