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Chapter 5
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
Newt’s letter continues. Apparently, Angela told Newt that he had really hurt Dr. Hoenikker by not admiring the cat’s cradle. Newt doesn’t think his father was very capable of being hurt. On that day, Newt ran outside after the incident with his father, where Frank was making bugs fight inside a jar, which Frank described as “experimenting.”
Angela is the staunchest defender of her father of the three siblings. As Newt points out, Dr. Hoenikker is portrayed as lacking the ability to relate to other people. Frank’s bug-fights are a gesture towards human conflict, and set up the opposition between experimenting—science—and violence.
Themes
Newt describes Angela as one of the “unsung heroines” of the atom bomb. At one stage during its development, Dr. Hoenikker became more interested in turtles than in completing the bomb. Angela told the scientific authorities to take away his turtles, which made her father return to his work. She saw her father as “one of the greatest men who ever lived,” and believed that he “won the war.”
The description of Angela is deeply sarcastic—“heroism” and the atom bomb do not belong together. Dr. Hoenikker’s interest in turtles suggests that his scientific mind led him wherever it wanted to go, regardless of the consequences.
Themes
Newt asks if John would like anecdotes about other days than the day of the bomb. He mentions the day the bomb was first tested. After its immense power of destruction was confirmed, a scientist turned to Dr. Hoenikker and said “Science has now known sin.” Dr. Hoenikker replied, “What is sin?”
