Parenting, Meaningless?

Kurt Vonnegut uses his notable satiric voice to take aim at a number of characteristics of human nature in his 1963 novel, Cat's Cradle.  To explain the significance of the book's title I pinpointed a chapter that best describes one of the primary themes Vonnegut develops throughout the story, that human nature leads people to identify achievements with undefinable purposes.  One character in particular Vonnegut characterizes as heavily impacted by the hollowness of such human quests.  Newt Hoenikker, son of Felix Hoenikker who developed the atomic bomb, lived a childhood with ineffective parental attention.  Without a mother, Newt's older sister embraced the maternal role in the house, while Newt's father never provided anything meaningful to the development of his offspring.  Newt reminisced of a single moment in his childhood where his father attempted to play cat's cradle with him.  Newt struggled to find the meaning of such a game and for the rest of his life found himself perplexed at the meaning of any individual's pursuits.  Newt's struggles surrounding the topic climax while on the island of San Lorenzo where he painted a nearly unidentifiable, black picture that he proclaimed a cat's cradle.  To most the picture sparked no ideas, to his sister the painting made for concern, but scientist Julian Castle appeared conscious of where Newt's painting hailed from.  Castle concluded that the picture intended to depict "'the meaninglessness of it all,'" a perplexing idea to the narrator of the story, Jonah (169).  Vonnegut's intentions with Castle's comment translate more directly than one may think.  The author at this moment simply attempts to encourage members of the audience proud of the lessons instilled in their lifetime to pause and reminisce for a moment.  Vonnegut strives to make readers reconsider the few monumental moments of their lives, what truly had meaning, what truly had an impact.  Castle simply provided an extreme outlook claiming nothing has bearing in the lives of people.  Vonnegut continues to develop that extreme perspective of Castle as he declared people never have "'anything really meaningful to say'" (169).  The pessimistic perspective of Castle encouraged Newt to elaborate on his lack of faith on the meaning of anything.  He returned to the game his father once played with him and asked, "'See the cat?  See the cradle?'" (179).  As a result, Vonnegut satirizes the parenting technique Felix Hoenikker adopted with Newt, for like the game had no meaning connected to its title, it also had no meaning and significant effect on Newt's life other than raising unanswerable questions.  As a son very appreciative of the morals and lessons my parents instilled in me I dislike the philosophy of Newt and Castle.  Maybe I am in denial but I believe the parenting techniques my mother and father used in my developing years differentiate me from my peers and had significance in my maturation.  I acknowledge that some games and moments may not have a signifcant effect on the life of a child but that does not mean everything in the world does not have a meaning.  As a result, I disagree with many that think Vonnegut had the intentions of portraying everything in the world as meaningless, instead I believe he encourages those proud of the lessons they have learned to find the significance of all the moments they believe had an impact on the way they live.