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Chapter 32
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
John asks Marvin if he knew Emily Hoenikker, Dr. Hoenikker’s wife. Marvin relays how they knew each other well at high school. He had a crush on her, but she went out with his brother Asa instead. He describes her as “the prettiest face that ever could be.”
Emily Hoenikker is a notable absence from the book. The death of both Hoenikker parents is suggestive of the children’s inability to take responsibility for their actions.
Themes
Marvin talks disparagingly about Dr. Hoenikker, who took Emily away from Asa and then didn’t appreciate what he had. He says he knows “all about how harmless and gentle and dreamy me he was supposed to be … but how the hell innocent is a man who helps make a thing like an atomic bomb?” He wonders if Dr. Hoenikker, like many other “people in high places,” was born “stone-cold dead.”
Marvin here neatly encapsulates the contradictory character of Dr. Hoenikker, whose air of naïve innocence when alive doesn’t match up to him being the “father” of the atomic bomb. Marvin’s point widens out to criticize people in positions of power.
Themes
