An Analysis of the Major Literary Elements in Catch-22

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“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.”

This is an iconic passage from Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a novel set near the end of the Second World War. Crazy, and yet hauntingly logical at the same time, Catch-22 manages to convey the horrors of war from a unique perspective. This novel leaves the traditional idea of the “enemy” (in this case, the Nazis) is in the background, as the primary focus is on how the soldiers fight for their lives against the bureaucracy of their own army.

At the beginning of the novel, boys were fighting and dying, and yet, the only person who seemed to realize that t...

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