8/13/2019 Kurt Vonegut's Works Analysis

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Kurt Vonneguts Explanation of Humanitys Worst Enemy

Vonnegut uses his works Cats Cradleand Slaughter House Five to demonstrate that

humanity will always lead to its own demise whether intentionally or by mistake. In Cats

Cradlethe human species is wiped out due to a power-hungry series of individuals, while in

Slaughterhouse Fivehumans kill each other on every scale and location.

Cats Cradle provides the example of how easy it is for one person to unknowingly or

accidentally harm another person. Felix Hoenikker is a nuclear physicist known as the father of

the atomic bomb. He is the embodiment of humanitysignorance towards one another. The

laboratory where a bomb is being produced to wipe a city and thousands of people off the map is

his playground, and he only develops things that seem interesting to him. His contributions to

science would not only serve to destroy Japan, but also would indirectly end humanity. Due to an

order from a military commander, Felix creates a substance that turns any hydration into solid.

As the substance goes from his hands to those of his children, and then more power hungry

hands, the risk that itll land on water and take away the earths water supply gets increased

exponentially. His children either sold the substance for positions of power, or got it stolen by

people who serve those already in such positions. Once ice nine got into the hands of the leader

of San Lorenzo, humanitys fate was set. When he passed away, ice nine consumed the hydration

of his body, and due to the unexpected outside factor of a plane crash creating a land slide, his

body fell into the sea. This connected the ice nine on his body to the water in the ocean, hence

creating a chain reaction until the worlds water supply had dried up. These examples

demonstrate that whether people intentionally want to harm each other, such as in the atom

bomb, or if it happens unintentionally, as with the ice nine, people themselves are the root cause

of the problems they try to fix.

8/13/2019 Kurt Vonegut's Works Analysis

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With Slaughterhouse Five Vonnegut shows us the easiness one person can kill another

intentionally by showing the destructiveness of war. In addition, the use of the illusion of free

will demonstrates humanity's fate of destroying one another cannot be changed. Fire bombings in

Dresden, prisoner of war camps, massive body burnings, and many more things are what

Vonnegut uses to show the detrimental effect of human conflict. He shows how conflict puts

people's lives on hold, just how Billy was drafted into the army before he could finish his

training to become an optometrist, and how it can affect people after it is done, much like Billy's

flashbacks to Dresden. In addition, the death of Billy demonstrates with how much ease someone

can inflict harm upon another for previous actions, and for how long someone can hold a grudge.

Since Billy can only aimlessly surf through time without being able to change anything, this

demonstrates that humanity's natural behavior cannot be changed. It. along with the book is a

demonstration that although humanity has gone through giant conflicts such as massive world

wars, it never learns from the past and inherently will continue to inflict harm.

Through the use of his works, Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates that humanity has the will

and way to destroy itself. Even if unintentionally, through toying with the world and how it

works, and analyzing it from a different perspective, demise can still be reached through

intervening actors.