Catch 22 Journal Entry Essay

Catch-22 Journal Entry

Catch-22 is a fictional novel written by author Joseph Heller that takes place during the end of WWII. The US entered WWII in December 1941 in reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese air forces. The book is set in Italy, where the main character was stationed and where the US forces were fighting the axis powers. Heller himself was a bombardier like his main character, Joseph Yossarian. They were both also stationed on small islands off the coast of Italy: Heller on Corsica and Yossarian on Pianosa. Heller’s personal experience during the war shaped his descriptions and characterizations in the novel.

Catch-22 follows the protagonist, Yossarian’s experience during WWII. However, the book is nowhere near chronological and jumps from different time periods of Yossarian’s service in the military. The novel depicts many events of where Yossarian

loses members of his squadron, but there’s only one that reoccurs numerous times, and that’s the death of Snowden. Snowden dies in front of Yossarian due to the fact that Yossarian missed a wound hidden underneath Snowden’s garment. The repetition of this event mimics to the audience how deaths in war never really escape the minds of soldiers but rather haunt them eternally. This really displays Heller’s dismay with the mentally deteriorating effects wars have on human beings.
A literary tool Heller incorporates is trivial, illogical anecdotes to develop the characters.

For example, there is a story of why a character named Appleby would put apples in his cheeks so he could look like had “apple cheeks”. While Appleby believes that putting apples in his cheeks is completely logical, to the his squadron as well as the audience, it’s seen as insane and hilarious. Heller blurs the line between sanity and insanity in this novel. These types of illogical actions portrayed in the novel are really parallel to the lack of logic in the military. All of the members of the squadron struggle with the fact that the number of completed missions required is constantly raised in order to trap them in this war. The actions of the military are satirized by Heller through comparison showing that they are no better than the silly actions of characters like Appleby. Heller’s point is that the military is an overbearing bureaucracy that does not act on intelligence but rather illogical force. However, it is a system so powerful that few of the characters in the novel could escape

it.
The raised number of missions throughout the novel also portrays the squadron’s sense of hopelessness to the audience. No matter how many missions they fly, they know that the end result will always be the same: more missions. This type of mindset will only drive a man to insanity and almost all the characters succumb to this insanity. Yossarian is the protagonist of this novel because he refuses this torture. His method of escape is to fake illnesses and land in the hospital, a safe haven for him. While this seems like a cowardly act, Heller portrays Yossarian as a hero. Yossarian is the only one who realizes how dangerous the military bureaucracy is to not only his physical but also mental health. At the end of the novel, Yossarian is able to triumph and run away from his life as a bombardier entirely.
The entire novel is based on this “catch-22” that plagues Yossarian, and it’s explained for the first time on page 46.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own 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 was sane he would have 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. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
This Catch-22 dictates wartime life for Yossarian and all of the members of his squadron. It is a paradox that traps all of the soldiers in their current state, unable to escape the horrors of war no matter how many missions they fly. Heller includes Yossarian’s “deeply moved” state to show how no one in the military really saw this catch that controlled their lives. It also shows the insensitivity of war because all of these men are being sent to die based on flimsy words. This passage is perhaps the most important one in the novel because it establishes the thought of a Catch-22 which not only reappears numerous times in the novel but also pervades every human experience in real life.