The main theme that has struck me the most throughout Cat’s Cradle is that many ideas and institutions in our society are based on lies. “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.” This quote from chapter four is the most explicit statement of this theme, but it occurs in other places as well. Another example would be the creation of the atomic bomb. Society believes that the bomb was created by a group of scientists to destroy a nation in order to end the war. John soon finds out that it was Dr. Hoenikker who created by just following what research interested him the most. His research was then exploited by the US government for the purpose of ending the war. When reading the book and noticing all of these lies that are the foundation of so many different things there was one lie from my life that I remembered vividly, and that lie was Santa Claus. I was furious when I found out that Santa was a lie and I was convinced that Christmas would never be the same. When Christmas did come, to my surprise, it was exactly the same. I still received presents, saw family, and got off of school for two weeks. Thinking back on this now I’m happy that my parents lied to me about Santa because it gave me joy as a child while teaching me that Christmas is a fun and joyous time, which I still feel even though Santa is not real. Thinking back on this helped me to understand the point that Vonnegut is trying to get across. Even though some foundations are based on lies, that doesn’t make them irrelevant. He wants to show that the concept of lying is not black and white, just different shades of grey.
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