The Presence And Significance Of Humour Elements In The Novel Catch 22

November 9, 2021 by Essay Writer

Joseph Heller writes this book in 1961, and this book is talking about a bunch of soldier in world war two who don’t really want to be involved in this war, and so the story began with a soldier whose name is Yossarian. He is an air force on the island of Pianosa, which is near the Italian coast. Yossarian and all his friends in the army live under the nightmare of their officer and all the violence around them. This all happen because the officer thinks the entire army are the resources for the country to take over other countries. The squadron got throw into the war without fully training, and the officer keeps higher the time that the squadron required to fly before they can go home so that no one in this squadron can go home, and the officer don’t need to hire new people. But no one in this army except Yossarian realizes that there is a war going on around them.

This book is formed by stories that happen on Yossarian life in world war two, so almost the whole book is written under his point of view. Yossarian think world war two directly to him, but his mind didn’t get influenced by other people’s or his officer’s idea, Yossarian is angry that why other people always put his life in danger and think that the whole world is going to hunt him down. Even though he thinks the whole world is putting his life in danger but he still has a strong mind that he wants to keep his life going. In the book Yossarian spends a lot of time in the hospital, pretending that he has some liver problem so that he can stay in the hospital and not going to the war. Yossarian always think about Snowden who is a soldier too, and Snowden dies in Yossarian’s arm in one mission, and the death of Snowden destroy the hope in Yossarian’s life and destroy his willingness to fight for his country. Yossarian born and live in a chaotic period of time, he saw his friends die in the battlefield, and some of his friends even disappeared without reason, the most tragic one is his squadron got bombed by their general. The colonels put the army under his control on the most dangerous mission just to benefit themselves.

Catch 22 is military laws that have been defined in a lot of different ways in the book. Yossarian finds out that he probably can get out of the army by doctor say he has a mental problem. Yossarian always finding ways to get out of the army, he starts to say that he has a mental problem, by saying he has a mental problem he shows that he is calm and know what he is doing. Since all the soldier starts to say he or she has a mental problem to avoid going on to a mission. Catch 22 is a low that is illegal to read. The irony part of catch 22 is the place where catch 22 be written is illegal in the law of catch 22. It is defined as the law that the enemy can do anything but others can’t stop him from doing it. In short catch 22 is a law that using a lot of weird logic to catches the innocent people to serves for the little number of people who make this law. Catch 22 is almost in the whole book and the story of the character, in the story its full of the weird logic and hoe it catch the people who don’t even know what is going on, for example a very power officer Milo Minderbinder to make a lot of money by making business in the companies that he already own.

As Yossarian trying to keep himself alive, a lot of different stories happen around him. One of his friend who’s name is Nately fall in love with a prostitute who is from Rome. The prostitute continually ignores him, and the fact that her little sister continually interrupts their romantic dating. Finally, the prostitute accepts his love and fall in love with Nately, but tragic happen right after this, Nately got to kill at the first mission that the got to accept. After Yossarian bring this news back to that prostitute, she was so mad and sad that she blames on Yossarian for the Nately’s dead. After that every the prostitute see Yossarian she try to stab him with the knife. Another story follows by the rise of an officer whose name is Milo Minderbinder and have a lot of relationship with the black market. Milo runs a company call syndicate, in which that he uses the army airplane and pilots to transport the food all around Europe, this brings a lot of money for Milo. Although he says that all the people in syndicate can have a share of his money but his promise has been proving wrong, he didn’t share any money with the people he works with. Even though he didn’t share his money but this company still keep making a lot of money, and all the communities in Europe respect and thankful for what he has done.

Catch 22 going to the end by Yossarian got trouble by the death of his friend Nately, because of that Yossarian start to refuses to go on to any mission that the officer give him. As he walking on the street of Rome he sees a lot of awful things like disease, rape, and murder. The police arrested him because he is in Rome without the pass, his officer Colonel Catheter and Colonel Korn, offer him some choice. He can either face the military court or be sent home with an honorable discharge, there is one condition that he has to follow, in order to let him go home, he has to prove Catheter and Korn stats and support their policy that all the people in the army need to fly eighty mission in order to go back home. Although the condition is very good for him, he realizes that if he accepts the condition then more people in the army will suffer because of him, so he choose another way out, he runs away from the army and go to neutral Sweden, he turns his back on the army and the law of catch 22, now he can choose his own life, and live the life that he wants to.

Now I’m going to introduce the main character of this book Yossarian, he is a captain of the air force, and he job is to lead the solider to fly bombardier. He hate the war and the army, he really want to live and not die in the war, because of that he fine out a lot of people is trying to kill him. And he hates the army system so he tries to run away from that.

Next I’m going to introduce a close friend with Yossarian, whose name is Nately, he is a nineteen years old kind boy who is from a rich family. He fall in love with the prostitute, but sadly he die in the one of the mission. Hungry Joe a very funny character he is a psychopath, before he join the army he Is a photographer for the magazine, and after that he got into taking naked woman’s picture. And he always have some horrible nightmares in the night before he go out on mission next day.

All and All I think this book is very interesting, it have some funny parts but it also talks about the deeper parts of the military life. In this book we knows more about how officer make their own benefit and how they give the solider under them pressure, so I think this book is pretty good and hope more and more people can read it.

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