Cat's Cradle? (REVISED)

Cat's Cradle had to have been one of the most interesting, yet confusing novels I have ever read. Yes, it had a lot of mind catchers that caused me to become more interested in what was to happen next, page after page, until I finally finished the whole book. However, when purchasing the book I already had one question in mind that I was hoping the book would clear up once I finished it: Why is it called Cat's Cradle? Maybe I missed the point of why Vonnegut decided to name the novel that, but I don't think that the idea of a Cat's Cradle had anything to do with the book besides the fact that the brilliant scientist played it while he put himself in isolation inside his house for a good majority of his life. Although I didn't feel that the book did much to answer my question, Vonnegut did have characters imply things that triggered the readers mindset into thinking about the Cat and the Cradle.

“Her husband is mean as hell to her,” said Newt. He showed us that he hated Angela’s handsome young husband, the extremely successful Harrison C. Conners, President of Fabri Tek. “He hardly ever ecer comes home—and, when he does, he’s drunk and generally covered in lipstick.”
“From the way she talked,” I said, “I thought it was a very happy marriage.”
Little Newt held his hands six inches apart and he spread his fingers. “See the cat? See the cradle?” (Vonnegut: 179).

There is also another line like the very last one about the cat and the cradle on page 183. While reading both, I began to think that if I read a few more chapters and got to the end of the book, it would eventually all make sense. I was very wrong. In an attempt to engage the passage involving what Cat’s Cradle meant, there wasn’t much to get out of it, but I still found myself being able to engage it some how.

When breaking it down, I attacked both passages by rereading over and over again to try to gain further knowledge of Vonnegut himself, why does he use the cat’s cradle anology here and what does it really mean? In the passage provided above and in the second passage, both seemed to have one simple similarity that eventually stuck out for me after overanalyzing what was meant by both. From both, I got the impression that the cat would represent some kind of person or realistic living thing and the cradle was the comfort zone for the cat. In the passage above I used Angela as the cat because she is the character being talked about. She has a great husband who gets a lot of money and is very successful, however, she is unhappy because he isn’t nice to her and doesn’t treat her well. Jonah is confused by this and almost seems to be asking why Angela would live such a life with a horrible person. This is Angela’s Cradle. Her rich life and successful husband is her cradle for her long, rather devistating life. My theory works with both passages, however it still did not identify what was truly meant by Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle.

Questions:
1.) What do you (other students) think Vonnegut meant by the analogy "Cat's Cradle?"
2.) Why do you think Vonnegut uses this approach or uses analygies?
3.)What are your thoughts and feelings about the book and the way Vonnegut set it up?