Catch22 :: Essays Papers

Catch22In Catch-22, Joseph Heller reveals the perversions of the human character and society. Using various themes and a unique style and structure, Heller satirizes fight and its values as well as using the war setting to satirize society at large. By manipulating the classic war setting and voice communication of the refreshful Heller is able to depict society as dark and twisted. Heller demonstrates his depiction of society through the institution of war (i.e. its effects and problems during and afterward war). Hellers satire of war and his anti war themes evoke pleasure and disquietude to show the mess of war, the victimization of the conscripts, and the monstrous egotism of the reach brass.Catch-22 shows how the individual soldier loses his uniqueness not as much from the battlefield the likes of other novels set during a war, but from the bureaucratic mentality. An example of this Lt. Scheisskopfs compulsion with parades that he sees the men more as puppets than as h uman beings. At one point in the novel, he even wants to wire them together so their movements will be perfectly precise--just as mindless puppets would be. This theme likewise appears when Colonel Cathcart keeps increasing the number of missions his squadron must fly--not for military purposes, but to solely enhance his prestige. ane other example of this theme is in the novel, when Yossarian is wounded. He is told to take better care of his leg because it is government property. Soldiers, therefore, are not even people, but but property that can be listed on an inventory. In a bureaucracy, as Heller shows, individuality does not matter.In form, Catch-22 is a social satire--it is a novel using absurd humor to discredit or ridicule aspects of our society. The target in Catch-22 is not just the self-serving attitudes of some military officers, but also the Air Force itself as a mad military bureaucracy. The humor in the novel along with descriptive styles such asDoc Daneek a, roosted dolorously like a shivering turkey buzzard the mountains, blanketed in a mesmerizing quiet, Yossarian, wet with the feeling of warm slime, lavender gloom clouding the entrance of the trading operations tentThese descriptive styles help depart from pure realism--they serve to transcend physical reality by reservation sensations metaphors for states of mind and by attributing unusual qualities to objects, making the reader take a second look at familiar objects and feelings.