Jonah
John, mostly known as Jonah, born in the state of Indiana (date of birth unknown) is an American free-lance writer who graduated from Cornell University. He dedicated a great amount of time and effort to writing a book with the purpose to serve as an account of what important Americans did on the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. This book was to be titled The Day the World Ended. Jonah however, never finished writing the book and wrote a different book instead.
1 Personal Life
John, whose parents were the only ones to call him by his real name, resides in New York. He converted from Christianity to Bokononism after. His life has revolved around writing The Day the World Ended since he was young. In the past, he has been an avid smoker and drinker stating he has smoked many (“hundreds of thousands of”) cigarettes and has drunk a substantial amount (“thousands of quarts”) of spirits. Jonah remarried twice but is single now.
2 Work
2.1 The day the world ended
Jonah has a rigorous approach as a writer and wants to fully understand what is going on in people’s heads; more specifically, in the heads of those who cooperated on the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation and deployment of the atomic bomb. His methodology for creating this book is yet another mere confirmation.
Jonah began writing a book called The Day the World Ended and started gathering information while still residing in New York. This major undertaking started by establishing a correspondence with the son of Felix Hoenikker, one of the lead scientists behind the Manhattan project, Felix Hoenikker. After some communication, back and forth, Jonah travels to Ilium and meets Felix Hoenikker’s former employer Dr. Asa Breed. Although Jonah does not make great strides in his book, he is introduced to a substance he had not ever heard of before. This so-called ‘ice-nine’ has the capacity to destroy Earth by freezing all the water on it. Little did Jonah know in Ilium that he would be confronted with ice-nine later again on the Island of San Lorenzo and is faced with an apocalypse.
It is there, in the Republic of San Lorenzo, an island that lies in the Caribbean Sea, that Jonah refocuses on his book and meets many people who happen to be convenient sources for the book he continues writing. Jonah meets the Minton family, all of Felix Hoenikker’s children, and the beautiful Mona Monzano (the daughter of the Islands dictator Papa Monzano) amongst others. During his trip to the Island of San Lorenzo, Jonah is introduced to what would be his new faith; Bokononism. Notwithstanding these coincidences, this voyage is also very engrossing in terms of knowledge of how all events taking place on the Island have an either direct or indirect connection to other events which are favorable for his story. This ‘kan-kan’ which is essentially the tool one must meet his ‘karass’ which is a team that is comprised by people working put together by God to do whatever His will is without ever finding out what the greater significance is of it all.
After having realized all of this or actually having realized that Jonah was unable to realize anything about this for one never discovers what ones’ involvement is in any situation according to Bokonon, he learns that San Lorenzo’s leader, Papa Monzano, has a terminal form of cancer and drearily death is inevitable for him. Apparently, Frank Hoenikker, who is the middle child of the Hoenikker family, is appointed as his replacement. Frank however, dismisses this opportunity and offers it to Jonah himself instead who complies and becomes the next commander-in-chief. Although Jonah does want to lend a helping hand to the debilitated society, it is not the actual reason that contributes to Jonah’s decision. The deciding factor is Mona Monzano and the path that has been swept clear to marriage by the prevailing position Jonah has been put in.
After having settled all these formalities, Papa Monzano commits suicide by taking ice-nine supplied by the Hoenikkers, which forces them to admit its existence.