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Vonnegut's Use Of Ice-Nine In Cats Cradle

434 Words2 Pages

Denny 1
K. S. Denny
Mr. Bret Shambaugh
American Literature 24 March 2023
Ice-nine In Cats Cradle In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle, ice-nine is a fictional substance that has the ability to freeze any liquid it comes into contact with. “It was blue-white. It had a melting point of one-hundred-fourteen-point-four-degrees Farenheit” (Vonnegut 51). If even a small amount of ice-nine is introduced into a body of water, it can rapidly freeze the entire body of water, then resulting in a global catastrophe. Cats Cradle portrayal of ice-nine indicates that it serves as a potential danger for humanity on Earth.
The ice-nine substance serves as a powerful allegory for Vonnegut's feelings about the atomic bomb and its potential to destroy all life on Earth. Vonnegut was a witness to the bombing of Dresden during World War II. This experience deeply affected Vonnegut and this shaped his views on war, and it included the destructive power of science that was described in his writing from his novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut saw firsthand the devastating consequences of the atomic bomb and was deeply troubled by the idea that science and new technology could be used for such a destructive purpose. In Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut uses the fictional character of Felix Hoenikker, a scientist who invents ice-nine, to explore the dangerous consequences of …show more content…

Hoenikker is portrayed as a very detached and antagonist character who is solely focused on the pursuit of knowledge. The destructive power of ice-nine is also reminiscent of the biblical story of the great flood, in which God destroys the entire world with water. This connection highlights the idea that science has the potential to become a modern-day "god," with the power to create or destroy life on Earth. Vonnegut's use of ice-nine as an allegory for the atomic bomb also has broader implications for the role of science in their

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