Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 centers around a contentious, incorrigible, paranoid bombardier named John Yossarian; who would do anything to save his own skin. Yossarian devises many schemes to be sent home from the Air Force, from faking injuries to land in the hospital, to outright asking to be discharged. However, “The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade” hinders his efforts. The Oath’s basic principle states that a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved (Heller, 58) , therein lies the catch which Yossarian desperately searches for the loophole. Yossarian knows that what the government is doing to the …show more content…
Adolf Hitler’s power was at its’ apex, and everyone was too intimidated by his violence to speak up. In Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, doing anything that could be remotely interpreted as treasonous, from buying from a Jewish vendor, to openly protesting, could have you killed. Many citizens knew that what their “leader” was doing was immoral and wrong. However, they had no other choice but to openly obey, and quietly discuss what to do to escape. These manipulative leaders knew exactly what to do to discourage their citizens from acting out, and inveighing against them. As a final assertion of his absolute, but ephemeral power, Hitler organized Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass”, where his Nazi soldiers destroyed Jewish stores, ransacked and pilfered the shops’ goods, burned synagogues to the ground, and killed over 100 German Jewish citizens. After Kristallnacht, more Jewish aides began to surface, non-Jewish Germans willing to secretly risk their lives to defend the innocent. The Germans did not go as far as the Italians,
Yossarian’s refusal to fly the ever-rising amount of missions and his reputation with the other men in his squadron show the heroic qualities of his actions. At first, his avoidance of combat seems merely self-centered, as the war is not something he believes in. When Yossarian has his traumatic experience trying to save Snowden in which he realizes that “man is matter” (450), his motives broaden as he realizes how fragile life is. Not only is he practicing self-preservation by refusing to fly, which can be seen as a heroic act in itself in a situation where life is so undervalued, but he is also refusing to kill and risk the lives of ...
In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, many of the character are conformists or conform to something one way or another. Major Major tries to act like the other men but still ends up being hated by everyone for no real reason besides being a major. Yossarian was in Pianosa and was just dealing with strangers shooting at him. He followed orders. However, he questioned why they had to do the things they were doing in the first place, why he had to kill people he didn’t know before they killed him first. At first, it did not bother him that he was killing people, but he was afraid of death. His fear of his own mortality caused him to question the order of his commanding officers and question his friends who actually enjoyed being in the war,
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller is a complex and intricate novel. Heller uses many themes, does not have the story line in chronological order and often uses irony in his descriptions. Many of the themes can be compared to other literature. One of the themes that can be compared is fear in war. The idea is that the evils and cruelty of war can make a grown man go back into a "fetal" state. This can be seen in The Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell and can be compared to the metaphor used in chapter five of Catch 22. In this chapter Yossarian talks about the tight crawl space which led to the plexiglass bombardier’s compartment.
Most narratives out of the Holocaust from the Nazis point of view are stories of soldiers or citizens who were forced to partake in the mass killings of the Jewish citizens. Theses people claim to have had no choice and potentially feared for their own lives if they did not follow orders. Neighbors, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, by Jan T. Gross, shows a different account of people through their free will and motivations to kill their fellow Jewish Neighbors. Through Gross’s research, he discovers a complex account of a mass murder of roughly 1,600 Jews living in the town of Jedwabne Poland in 1941. What is captivating about this particular event was these Jews were murdered by friends, coworkers, and neighbors who lived in the same town of Jedwabne. Gross attempts to explain what motivated these neighbors to murder their fellow citizens of Jedwabne and how it was possible for them to move on with their lives like it had never happened.
There was dead silence in his office, the kind of silence that should never be disturbed. The look of determination on his face was uncanny. Every single move he made was precise and delicate. Colonel Cathcart slowly rolled a few inches away from his desk in his chair, just enough so he could stand up. At a snail's pace, he stood up never taking his eyes off his masterpiece. Cathcart's hand was shaking immensely as he lifted the playing card up to complete his beloved tower. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK' Cathcart's body jumped in surprise, causing his hand to jolt at the sound of the noise. The tower collapsed in seconds. All Cathcart had now was 51 cards scattered all over his desk, still gripping the final card in his hand.
that occurred under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. However, he wasn’t by far the only one in the wrong. Germans all over the country had followed him as well. Which, it started small, outcasting these people, boycotting their businesses, and wrongfully making intimations about their culture, how they acted, and who they were. All three of these historical events are veritably similar. “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” (Levi) Primo Levi also talks of how blind Hitler’s followers were. The lack of individual thinking caused thousands of innocent people to be abused, and
“ Hitler used propaganda and manufacturing enemies such as Jews and five million other people to prepare the country for war.” (Jewish Virtual Library), This piece of evidence shows Hitler’s attempt of genocide toward the Jewish race a...
The events which have become to be known as The Holocaust have caused much debate and dispute among historians. Central to this varied dispute is the intentions and motives of the perpetrators, with a wide range of theories as to why such horrific events took place. The publication of Jonah Goldhagen’s controversial but bestselling book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” in many ways saw the reigniting of the debate and a flurry of scholarly and public interest. Central to Goldhagen’s disputed argument is the presentation of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as ordinary Germans who largely, willingly took part in the atrocities because of deeply held and violently strong anti-Semitic beliefs. This in many ways challenged earlier works like Christopher Browning’s “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” which arguably gives a more complex explanation for the motives of the perpetrators placing the emphasis on circumstance and pressure to conform. These differing opinions on why the perpetrators did what they did during the Holocaust have led to them being presented in very different ways by each historian. To contrast this I have chosen to focus on the portrayal of one event both books focus on in detail; the mass shooting of around 1,500 Jews that took place in Jozefow, Poland on July 13th 1942 (Browning:2001:225). This example clearly highlights the way each historian presents the perpetrators in different ways through; the use of language, imagery, stylistic devices and quotations, as a way of backing up their own argument. To do this I will focus on how various aspects of the massacre are portrayed and the way in which this affects the presentation of the per...
In literature, there is often a character who aims to achieve his goals using deception and trickery. Whether deception can be driven by desires that are morally wrong, such as greed or political power, it can often end up both hurting and helping others. While these characters can seem out of place, they often bring a significant meaning or theme. In the novel Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, the character of Milo Minderbinder employs deception as a means to satisfy his personal greed and yearning for power at the expense of others.
Human nature has capacity for both greatness and smallness, due greatly to the way they deal with thoughts, words, and actions. If they overcome their fears, maintain confidence and honesty, mental stability is nourished. However, when humans succumb to denial or fear, mental instability is the result. In the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Yossarian, the book’s protagonist makes a critical choice that leads to a devastating consequence: insanity. Since he is a coward and doesn’t like to take risks like everyone else who are fighting for their lives too. He is a bombardier who flew in endless amounts of missions seemed to have never gotten the chance to return home healthy and safe. Returning mentally healthy would be one of the problems that apparently seemed to be the only thing Yossarian cared about. Insanity evolves in this novel through the main character's actions as a cause and effect. In the novel “Catch-22” the author uses imagery, internal conflict and irony to reveal the causes of Yossarian’s insanity.
I discovered that I had no immediate answer to this facetious dismissal of one of history's most profound tragedies. It was a sweeping and indiscriminate assertion, to be sure, but not one entirely without merit. If general stupidity were not to blame, then why had six million Jews endured such torture? Were none of them in a position to unite in any sort of cohesive resistance? What of the Catholics who were murdered in the concentration camps as well? The blacks? Political dissidents? Members of the press? In fact it seems that the Nazis, over the course of their reign, discriminated against so many professions, creeds, philosophies, and classes that for a person not to belong to at least one must have been a remarkable feat of chance. I could not begin to understand how the National Socialist Party had, with such a miserable and offensive political platform, managed to gain power in Germany, nor how, with such cruel and oppressive practices, they managed to keep it.
Throughout the novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller surrounds the audience into an absurd environment. He also uses literary aspects such as juxtaposition in order for the reader to take in his message thoroughly. His literally terms place an emphasis on the corruption of bureaucracy, its toxicity and its absurdity.
The law put forth by Germany during the Nazi regime were emotionally and physically unjust, with little room for justification beyond the power of Adolf Hitler and his followers. These so called “laws” required citizens to report their fellow citizens as being Jewish so Hitler and his troops could remove them from society. The “decent human side” overwhelmingly prevailed over “good citizen” in this situation, and people defied Hitler. To act in such a way that was morally just and assist the Jewish refugees, citizens acted against the manmade law and kept in line with the rest of the world’s perception of natural law. Naturally, it seems that the only time it is acceptable to defy a manmade law is when such a law intrudes upon important and all-inclusive laws that concern foundational human rights. In the Nazi example, one could argue that disobeying Hitler’s law is justified on a theoretical basis because moral law always takes precedence over what might be constructed by a regime through the dangerous combination of hate and power. In the time of the Nazis, the act of obeying such laws would turn the obeying party into violators of human ri...
Critics often refer to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 as an anti-war novel. At its core, the novel has a disparaging view of war. The main character, John Yossarian, believes that war is madness. He is astounded that men lay down their lives for vague concepts such as country, patriotism, and honor. However, unlike the typical anti-war novel, Catch-22 doesn’t focus on the most dismal aspects of war; Heller masterfully crafts an effective satirical style of addressing war. Corruption, confusion, and dishonesty run amok in the novel and these principles justify the embodiment of Catch-22 as an anti-war novel.
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).