Postmodernism In Joseph Heller's Catch-22

Since modernism wasn’t defined in the previous section, it will be defined now. If it is not defined, then any concept of postmodernism would lack the proper foundation. Modernism is usually a first person narrative dealing with self-consciousness and a rather cynical view of the modern world—modern life is bad and stuff.

In contrast to that, postmodernism views the world as impossible to firmly define and understand. It is a reaction to modernism, and its features and beliefs rely on the concept of modernism. In its name and its meaning, postmodernism is a response to modernism.

In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the elements of postmodernism are prevalent. I forget the name of the term, but extremely-detailed, overlong, and somewhat disorganized writing is seen as an element of postmodernism. I wish I’d remember the term because I don’t know if the term adequately fits Catch-22. By my definition of it, I could quote Catch-22 in its entirety and call it a day, but my memory isn’t extraordinary enough to remember the minute particulars of my high school, freshman English course. I should be glad that I can remember the gist of things.

There’s a point in the prior break of formality and meta nature of my communication. This idea of breaking the fourth wall is another postmodern concept where direct access to the reader and writing about writing are both

These ideas are implemented by including impossible, unrealistic events into the narrative. This can be seen in Catch-22 with the character of Milo. He’s not good, and he’s not really evil, unless you want to claim that the American ideal of making money is evil (Heller kind of does, but I disagree with him). He’s Milo Minderbender, and he’s the embodiment of the ideas of moral ambiguity and general confusion of what’s really happening. The following quote deals with Milo making sense of an unrealistic