Ya so postmodernism....... not really my favorite, but moving on. So throughout Cat's Cradle we see the influence that religion has on the day to day lives of the different characters. Julian Castle goes on a rampage saying' "You can tell him he isn't my hero, but you can also tell him that, thanks to him, Jesus Christ is." When you hear this you think that Castle is a very religious person, but he later goes on to say that people says things, "just to keep their voice boxes in working order." This shows us that to Castle, nothing truly has any meaning. I think it’s safe to say the same thing goes for many people. Although they may say/believe one thing, they could turn around and believe something completely different. An example of this would be with the people of San Lorenzan. Although Christianity is the forced religion, all of the citizens of San Lorenzan practice Bokononism in private. Even Papa Monzonio practices Bokononism.
In addition we see that people need to be told the difference between what is the truth and what is a lie. Angela says, “Sometimes I wish Newt would take some lessons, so he could know for sure if he was doing something or now.” Angela needs to be told by someone else, if something is good enough or not. Instead of deciding for herself if her brother’s art work is good, she feels the need to ask a professional if it is good. This shows us that people have gotten the concept that they need to tell them what truth is. Rather than discover what her idea of the truth is, Angela feels the need to ask someone else for their opinion.
I think that many things have influenced what the characters in Cat’s Cradle believe to be the truth. And many of them just accept ideas that are given to then, instead of discovering what they want the truth to be.
