“I know about how harmless and gentle and dreamy he was supposed to be, how he’d never hurt a fly, how he didn’t care about money and power and fancy clothes and automobiles and things, how he wasn’t like the rest of us, how he was better than the rest of us, how he was so innocent he was practically jesus….”, explained Marvin Breed. In the funeral shop, Marvin spoke to Jonah about the gossip that surrounded Felix Hoenikker when he first moved to Illium County. In the excerpt, Marvin’s emphasis on words like, “...supposed to be…”, and “...he was practically Jesus….”, reveal that Felix Hoenikker preconceived reputation was different from the Felix they all grew to know. In the novel “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut, his character Dr. Felix Hoenikker serves as an important villain in the story due to his lack of wisdom, his similarities to the real life Dr. Langmuir, and absence of humanity. Intertwined in the plot of the novel are characters that have influences from real life people, such as Dr. Felix Hoenikker inspiration …show more content…
Hoenikker devoted himself to researching and developing the impossible, but never stopped to reflect upon the effects of his research on society. After a Marine general propositioned him about a substance that could freeze mud on instantly, Hoenikker insisted that it was impossible. However, Hoenikker made it his goal to create this frozen substance. In fact, he killed himself experimenting with the substance called ice-nine, “... on whose label he had written: ‘Danger! Ice-nine! Keep away from moisture!’ All day long the old man had been nagging his children with words like these, merry in tone: ‘Come on now, stretch your minds a little. I’ve told you that it’s melting point is a hundred fourteen-point-four degrees Fahrenheit….Apparently, before he sat down in his wicker chair and died, the old man played puddly games in the kitchen with water and pots and pans and ice-nine” (Vonnegut