3. Applied Literature
Mohammad Ghaffary; Sara Karimi
Abstract
In the wake of WWII, how far science and technology may advance and the ethical responsibilities they bring became prominent problematics in philosophy and literature, including Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, particularly Cat’s Cradle (1963), a work of post-apocalyptic science fiction that intriguingly ...
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In the wake of WWII, how far science and technology may advance and the ethical responsibilities they bring became prominent problematics in philosophy and literature, including Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, particularly Cat’s Cradle (1963), a work of post-apocalyptic science fiction that intriguingly displays the dual nature of science as both creative and destructive. Since the novel deals with the catastrophic potentials of scientific inventions, it provides fertile ground for an ethical analysis based on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s Poststructuralist thought, which has not previously been employed to analyze the concept of science in this novel. Considering this and using a descriptive-critical method, this qualitative, library-based study explores how in Cat’s Cradle science actualizes virtual possibilities, comparing it with artistic creation. Based on Deleuzeoguattarian theory, the analysis delves into the ethical implications of scientific knowledge as truth and the (im)morality of science. The results suggest that in Vonnegut’s narrative science is essentially neither moral nor immoral, but rather virtually amoral, since Dr. Hoenikker is depicted as a scientist who, unaffected by morality, recognizes the virtual power of creation in science and represents what Deleuze terms active science. The findings of the study, thus, elucidate the virtual potentials underlying science in the novel, the way it affects the characters’ deterritorialization, its relation to ethics, and its capacity not only to extract functions but also create presubjective concepts and affects. The findings of the study carry significant implications for investigating the nature of science in (post-)apocalyptic science fiction, not least Vonnegut’s other novels.
