mperature. This technological breakthrough, by a scientist who worked on developing the atomic bomb, has the ability to destroy the world by freezing all its water. Even though the people with ice-nine are very careful all through the plot, they lose control of it in the end and the world becomes frozen. With ice-nine, Vonnegut thematically demonstrates how relatively simple technology can lay waste to the world, as the Allies did to Dresden (Draper, 3785). Cat's Cradle is an excellent example of Vonnegut's existentialism, "a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in. . . [an] indifferent universe, [and] regards human existence as unexplainable" (Bookshelf '94). Before the novel even starts, just below the dedication, he declares, "Nothing in this book is true. 'Live by the foma [harmless untruths] that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy'" (Vonnegut, Cradle). Vonnegut carries this concept all through the story, that the universe is meaningless and each person must exist for oneself. He even goes to the extent of inventing a religion, Bokononism, with which humans attempt to make some sense of everything, while realizing that everything is nonsensical. Vonnegut's existential philosophy also takes the form of a religion in The Sirens of Titan. The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent is established, on the principle that "puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God" (Vonnegut, Sirens, 180). Toward the end of the story, two existential ideas are developed: first that human life is incomprehensible (in this case controlled by aliens from another planet for a trivial purpose), and second that people must make a meaning for life on their own. When one character states, "The worst thing that could possibly happen. . . would be to not be used for anything by anybody," Vonnegut is suggesting that a good meaning for life might simply be to...
