Haiti in Cat's Cradle

"Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea of what's really going on."

Kurt Vonnegut's Cat Cradle is one of his satirical novels partly influenced by Haiti. Set in the fictional Caribbean republic of San Lorenzo, the island's dictator is "Papa" Monzano (named after Papa Doc Duvalier). "Papa" Monzano lives in castle built by an ex-slave emperor, Tum-bumwa, and the castle has never been attacked, much like Haiti's illustrious Citadel. In addition, the impoverished island where natives speak an English dialect has been the target of various Western powers. Vonnegut even satirizes the US businessmen Crosby whose reason for visiting San Lorenzo is to start a bike manufacturing factory, similar to foreign corporations who go to Haiti as a source of cheap labor. "Papa" Monzano is staunchly anti-Communist, and San Lorenzo even declared war against the Axis powers during WWII, again, like Haiti. Of course, San Lorenzo is perhaps better understood as a conglomeration of the entire Caribbean, but the Haitian influence is perhaps strongest.

"Papa" Monzano, the sickly dictator who, despite publicly criminalizing Bokononism, practices it, has adopted the daughter of a Finnish architect, Mona, the beautiful mulatto. Mona, revered by the people of the island and renowned for her alluring looks, can be seen as an Erzulie symbol of feminine spirituality's highest form who, as she tells the narrator, John, loves everyone in the Bokononist sense of boka-maru. Though Bokonon's religion is, according to himself, lies, one sees in how Mona relates to nearly everyone a genuine sense of love, perhaps inculcated during her youth when Bokonon tutored her and Castle's son.

This Caribbean island's propagator of myth, Bokonon, an old Negro from Tobago, who lives in the jungle, gave meaning to the people of San Lorenzo through religious lies while his friend, McCabe, ruled as a despot organizing the people against Bokonon. Oddly, everyone in the island is a Bokononist, driving the conflict in the novel and the absurdity of religion and science. Instead of finding a way to preach the 'truth' and uplift the impoverished people of San Lorenzo, preaching lies (fomas) through Bokononism has given an epic meaning to the lives of the people. Similarly, science also plays a similar role as "magic" that can also mislead and destroy, as one can see in Felix Hoenikker and his children's use of ice-nine (or the atomic bomb, which Felix helped develop). Human nature, faith, and science are all at fault here in this apolcalyptic world created during the height of the Cold War.

To a certain extent, the religion founded by Bokonon is loosely based on Vodou in Haiti (a stigmatized religion that, at times, was illegal). Of course, Haiti under Duvalier did not penalize practicing Vodou nor did it adopt the anti-Vodou rhetoric employed by "Papa" Monzano. This is about where comparisons between Vodou and Bokononism should end, unless one wishes to comment on religion generally. The Christian priest, Humana, also offers an interesting creolized take on Christianity that is reminiscent of Haitian Vodou, but rejected during the death rites of "Papa" Monzano.

Besides appearing as an important influence in Vonnegut's idea of the apocalypse and end of humanity (which makes sense, for what other region of the world has witnessed so much tragedy and terror as the Caribbean, the first site of genocide in the Americas?), Haiti and the Caribbean as a whole are forerunners in the creation of modernity, where the excesses of capitalism, religion, and science have fueled human suffering on a grand scale.