Revelation Of Destruction: An Ecological Interpretation Of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut's war experience in Dresden during the Second World War made him most concerned for human survival. And his working experience in General Electric where he made acquaintance with quite a few scientists led him to recognize the threat modern science and technology might impose on the earth and human beings. He then put his concern for nature and human survival and his reflection on modern science and technology and on human culture into his apocalyptic science fiction-Cat's Cradle.This thesis consists of three chapters besides the Introduction and the Conclusion.The Introduction gives a brief review of Vonnegut and his Cat's Cradle, the critics'comments concerned, and the questions to be explored in this thesis.Chapter One illustrates the theoretical foundations of this thesis. This chapter gives an overview about the development and features of ecocriticism and the main principles of Deep Ecology.Chapter Two concentrates on examining the destruction of the physical world and what this destruction reveals to us. The ecological wisdoms contained in the fictional religion-Bokononism forms a distinct contrast with the harmful anthropocentrism contained in Christianity. And by analyzing ice-nine's embodiment of modern technology's destructive effects and the author's reflections on modern science and technology which are abound in Cat's Cradle, the negative effects of the worldviews promoted by modern science and technology on people's views towards nature are made clear. Thus by criticizing the harmful views contained in Christianity and illuminating how modern science and technology affect people's views on nature in a bad way, the roots of the destruction of the physical environment are revealed: they are the anthropocentric and desacralizing views on nature. Besides, ice-nine also embodies the destructive effects modern science and technology might have when they lack ecological responsibility. And what happened to San-Lorenzo warns that some developed countries'policy that invokes environmental injustice is the catalyst of the destruction.Chapter Three concentrates on analyzing the destruction of the spiritual world and what this destruction reveals to us. The grotesque characters in Cat's Cradle represent modern westerners who are suffering from their unbalanced psychological ecology. And there are three reasons for this disturbance of psychological ecology. The first reason is the crisis of Faith. Alienated from God, people became free of the moral restraint imposed by God, which upsets the balance between their good wills and selfish desires. Dr. Hoenikker and his three children are the representatives of these unbelievers. The second is individuals'isolation from others and society. The negative feelings caused by the isolation pollute people's spiritual world, and their polluted minds make them go further towards their personal tragedies. The representatives of those spiritually-polluted are the Hoenikkers, Mintons, and Hazel. The third reason is the negative effects of technology on human minds. In the process of using technology to control nature, human beings as a part of nature are also controlled by modern technology. People are alienated from themselves and instrumentalized under technocracy. The upsetting of the balance of people's psychological ecology by technology can be seen in Girl Pool and Knowles.In the Conclusion the author of the thesis points out that Cat's Cradle is a profound and suggestive apocalyptic novel. Although the dual destruction, the destruction of the physical world and that of human spiritual world, occur at the ending of the novel, there is still hope for human beings to survive if they recognize the revelation of the destruction presented in the novel and learn something from it.