Cat's Cradle Seminar Post-Write and Synthesis

1- Reflection
Looking back on the seminar, I think that first of all, Cat's Cradle is probably my favorite book that we have read this semester.  We have read multiple books, all of which were different yet enjoyable, I still found myself looking at Cat's Cradle like a book that I would enjoy reading out of class as well.  I think that coming out of the seminar it seems like a lot of students feel this way as well.  I think that everyone had a different feeling about this book or claim that they were trying to defend, yet for the most part the themes in this book were easy enough to grasp for us to have an in-depth conversation about and still mostly agree.  I think that I brought a lot of good points to the fishbowl without overtaking it.  I also felt that I did not take over the conversations when there were times that I could have.  I did come in late and due to that I missed being in my original group which could have impacted the conversation a little bit but at the same time I enjoyed the group I was in.  The group itself I also feel did a really good job of clarifying points and bringing new claims to the discussion.  Overall I think that I deserve an A on this seminar based on the rubric.
One thing that in particular struck me as surprising, which I'm sure is true for everyone is a comment that towards the end of the conversation Elliott made about Africa.  Not that I even view this as a reoccurring theme our discussion encountered, but it was still very surprising that he would say that he "looses respect for people in Africa who are suffering from AIDS, starvation and thirst, as well as people who make an effort to help these people." WHAT? To me this was extremely weird and almost ignorant thing to say, especially in Humanities class.  This, hopefully, was not what he was implying to say, but at the same time definitely made the conversation more interesting and... louder for the time being.  Other than that comment I think the conversation in our seminar was really self-guided and a positive seminar.

2- Synthesis
One claim that I want to make about the text is that I believe Felix Hoenikker was a coward.  The reason I think this is because I made the assumption that he commit suicide at the beach house.  He was, as we discussed, a fairly selfish person who made discoveries and invented things based upon curiosity without thinking about what his discoveries could potentially do to others, even life itself.  When the Hoenikker children were recounting the events that happened on the day that Felix Hoenikker died it gave me the impression that the way he died was entirely different.  This is what really happened.  Felix Hoenikker brought his children to the beach house with him to give him an excuse to let them go off and play while he could play with his latest toy in private.  While they were out running errands and playing on the beach, he began to look into the ice-nine and what it could in fact do.  Whilst playing with it, he realized just how risky and potentially life-ending it could be and began to do some serious reflection.  He saw how simple and instantaneous it was for the ice-nine to transform surrounding water and that it could happen to any form and body of water, including people.  Realizing that he did not want to be held resposible for the end of life itself and seeing the human population all die, himself included, he ended his life early.  By sitting comfortably down and watching the ocean around him, knowing that he would never see it again, he got comfortable, and touched his lips.  The end.  By doing this he still ended humanity, and left his already neglected children to fend for themselves for the rest of their lives.  This is why I now think of Felix Hoenikker a cowardly and selfish man.