Response to: Book Report #2 - Question #1

The most important event in Cat's Cradle is when the Marine General tells Dr. Felix Hoenicker to make something convenient and portable that will get the marines out of the mud. The brilliant Felix faced with this query, invents a secret substance known only as ice nine.
Ice nine becomes the "wampeter"of Jonah's story. (A wampeter is an object, person, idea, or activity about which a group of fate connected people revolve.) The reason why this Wampeter is so important to the story is because it kills the planet at the climax of the story. Nobody knew that Felix ever invented it, because his boss believed it was just an idea. However, his three children found it the night he died. The threesome split up the ice nine into 3 specimens and disposed of the rest of it. The oldest son Frank gives his sample to a crazy dictator who eats the shard on his death bed. Due to an unfortunate chain of events, his frozen body came in contact with the ocean, raising the melting point of all the water on earth to 114.4 Fahrenheit and ending almost all human life immediately and the rest of it shortly thereafter. Jonah's book, titled: The Day the World Ended, is intended to be a documentary on the day they bombed Hiroshima, and the events leading up to it. Ironically, thanks to the Marine General who pestered Dr. Hoenicker at lunch one day, Jonah's book becomes an actual documentary of the day the world ends, and the events preceding.


*Kurt Vonnegut is a magnificent author and I thoroughly enjoyed his sense of humor throughout this story.