Absurdity In Catch 22

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Recommended: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller Analysis

On the topic of Catch-22, its author Joseph Heller posed the question “What does a sane man do in an insane society?” (BBC). In many ways we cannot fully empathize with this question nor with the novel’s main character Yossarian until we have experienced the extent of the futility and absurdity of Catch-22, but even more so, until having been overcome by its complexity. Both ideologically and in terms of its structure, Catch-22 is an incredibly complex piece of literature. Yet simultaneously, the themes at its core are fairly simplistic— something Yossarian recognizes when he says “he was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22” (46). Much like a Russian doll, wherein each layer reveals another version of the

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