Catch22 :: Essays Papers

Catch22In Catch-22, Joseph ogre reveals the perversions of the human character and society. victimization various themes and a unique style and structure, Heller satirises fight and its set as well as using the war setting to satirize society at large. By manipulating the classic war setting and lyric poem of the refreshed Heller is able to depict society as unrelenting and twisted. Heller demonstrates his depiction of society through the institution of war (i.e. its personal effects and problems during and after 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 awful egotism of the top brass.Catch-22 shows how the individual soldier loses his uniqueness not as much from the battlefield like other novels set during a war, hardly from the bureaucratic mentality. An voice of this Lt. Scheisskopfs obsession with parades that he sees the men more as puppets than as human beings. At one point in the novel, he even wants to wire them together so their movements will be dead precise--just as mindless puppets would be. This theme also appears when Colonel Cathcart keeps increasing the number of missions his squadron must fly--not for multitude purposes, hardly to solely enhance his prestige. One other example of this theme is in the novel, when Yossarian is wounded. He is told to take better care of his pin because it is government belongings. Soldiers, therefore, are not even people, but simply 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 send 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 Daneeka, roosted dolorously like a shivering turkey buzzard the mountains, blanketed in a mesmerizing quiet, Yossarian, wet with the feeling of warm slime, lavender sadness clouding the entrance of the operations tentThese descriptive styles help operate from pure realism--they serve to transcend physical reality by qualification 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.