Mapping Hubris: Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Odysseus’ Apologoi

Speculative Fiction, Ecocriticism, and the Wanderings of Odysseus

“…19.Fredericks (1980), 100f. On the Odyssey in science fiction, see also Fredericks (1982), 29–33, 86–8; Hall (2008), 82–7; Rogers (2015); Weiner (2015); Cooper (2018), 96–9.…”

“…See also Quint (1993), 106–8. Weiner (2015) discusses the excursus in connection with Vonnegut's reception of the Odyssey in Cat's Cradle , which shows technical ingenuity resulting in worldwide ecocatastrophe. Hopman (2012a), 6 n.21, cites Horkheimer and Adorno alongside other readings of the Cyclops episode (by classicists) ‘as a dramatization of the conceptual polarity between nature and culture, and a representation of man's triumph over uncivilized forces.’ Typically they are a more shadowy presence in discussions of the Odyssey; Cook (1995) provides an excellent example of this, titling a chapter ‘Dialectics of Enlightenment’ but omitting Horkheimer and Adorno from his bibliography.…”