Postmodernism has no distinct center or controlling source where it originated from, which makes it difficult to exactly define what is postmodernism. In the book Postmodernism for Beginners, the author describes life as "all the world's cultures, rituals, races, databanks, myths and musical motifs are intermixing like a smorgasbord in an earthquake." Meaning that postmodernists' goal is to take the separate groups, or as Kurt Vonnegut would say "granfaloons", and represent them. Postmodernists seem to believe that there is no central truth to life and that there is beauty within the chaos of multiple perspectives of life. I would even go so far as to say that postmodernists would say that holding a central ‘truth’ to life leads to the destruction of humanity because then everyone conforms to that idea and the idea of the individual is obliterated.
In Cat’s Cradle the postmodernist views come out when analyzing it with the lens of postmodernism. For starters, in the book there is a man named Bokonon who creates a religion on his discovered island in order to form a utopia of sorts, and in the first line of his book that defines the religion, he says: "All of the true things that I am to tell you are shameless lies." This shows that Vonnegut’s, the author, opinion of religion in itself is faulty since people are always on the search for something that they can believe and place their trust in. And with this quote in the very beginning of a religious text, the postmodernist ideals come out because Bokonon is straight forward in saying that it is all a lie, and that people trust that his religion is the ultimate truth are misleading themselves into finding ‘happiness’. Philosophies, like "Bokononism," are simply meant to give man something to think about, another way to sidetrack himself from the brutality of reality. This happiness that people find themselves in is usually because of the ignorance of what is truly going on around them and how cruel the world really. Postmodernists have this same ideal because you are broken off from the rest of the world and are in your own state of mind that everything is good in the world, which is embracing the different perspectives of life; just like what Cat’s Cradle is showing its readers.
Your blog was written very well I and throughly enjoyed reading it. As I was reading through it I saw that we were pretty much talking about the same thing. My blog touches on the points of Bokononism just like yours. This is a great thing I believe to connect to it being a Postmodern novel. I especially liked one of the quotes in your post though. It said "This happiness that people find themselves in is usually because of the ignorance of what is truling going on around them and how cruel the world really is". This quote hits the nail on the head for me because it was very creative and in the blog post that I did I said something along the lines of that also. I feel good that I am thinking along the lines of you because you are a fantastic thinker. It makes me all types of haoppy inside because I am on the same track as you. You made some great points in your blog as well that helped show that Cats Cradle is a postmodernist book and I liked how you used the quote. Well I am glad to learn that you are just as good at english as you are at basketball. Mediocre... Just playin you are too good at both. This is Ya Boi Carl Eberly signing out.
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