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For other uses, see Catch-22 (disambiguation).
Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller, first published in 1961. The novel, set during the later stages of World War II from 1943 onwards, is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the twentieth century.[2] It has a distinctive non-chronological style where events are described from different characters' points of view and out of sequence so that the time line develops along with the plot. The novel follows Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, and a number of other characters. Most events occur while the airmen of the fictional Fighting 256th (or "two to the fighting eighth power") Squadron are based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Italy.
[edit] ConceptAmong other things, Catch-22 is a general critique of bureaucratic operation and reasoning. Resulting from its specific use in the book, the phrase "Catch-22" is common idiomatic usage meaning "a no-win situation" or "a double bind" of any type. Within the book, "Catch-22" is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic that, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions. In Heller's own words:
Other forms of Catch-22 are invoked throughout the novel to justify various bureaucratic actions. At one point, victims of harassment by military police (MPs) quote the MPs as having explained one of Catch-22's provisions: Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating. An old woman explains: Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing. This nightmare of a bureaucracy crushing the individual with absurdity is similar to the world of Kafka's 'Trial', and George Orwell's '1984', the concept of 'doublethink' having definite echoes in Heller's work. Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 does not actually exist, but because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, because it does not exist there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. The combination of brute force with specious legalistic justification is one of the book's primary motifs. The motif of bureaucratic absurdity is further explored in 1994's Closing Time, Heller's sequel to Catch-22. This darker, slower-paced, apocalyptic novel explores the pre- and post-war lives of some of the major characters in Catch-22, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Yossarian and tailgunner Sammy Singer. [edit] Synopsis
The development of the novel can be split into multiple segments. The first (chapters 1-12) broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1943. The second (chapters 12-20) flashes back to focus primarily on the "Great Big Siege of Bologna" before once again jumping to the chronologal "present" of 1943 in the third part (chapter 20-25). The fourth (chapters 25-28) flashes back to the origins and growth of Milo’s syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28-32) returning again to the narrative "present" but keeping to the same tone of the previous four. In the sixth and final part (chapter 32 on) while remaining in the "present" time the novel takes a much darker turn and spends the remaining chapters focusing on the serious and brutal nature of war and life in general. [3] While the previous five parts develop the novel in the present and by use of flash-backs, it is in chapters 32-41 of the sixth and final part where the novel significantly darkens. Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but now the events are laid bare, allowing the full effect to take place. The horror begins with the attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the following chapters involving despair (Doc Daneeka and the Chaplain), disappearance in combat (Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) or death (Nately, McWatt, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe) of most of Yossarian’s friends, culminating in the unspeakable horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of Michaela, who represents pure innocence.[3] [edit] StyleMany events in the book are repeatedly described from differing points of view, so the reader learns more about each event from each iteration, with the new information often completing a joke, the punchline of which was told several chapters previously. The narrative often describes events out of sequence, but events are referred to as if the reader is already familiar with them, so that the reader must ultimately piece together a timeline of events. Specific words, phrases, and questions are also repeated frequently, generally to comic effect. Much of Heller's prose in Catch-22 is circular and repetitive, exemplifying in its form the structure of a Catch-22. Heller revels in paradox, for example: The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him, and The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with. This atmosphere of apparent logical irrationality pervades the whole book. While a few characters are most prominent, notably Yossarian and the Chaplain, the majority of named characters are described in a typical extent, with fully fleshed out or multidimensional personas, to the extent that there are few if any "minor characters". [edit] Major themesOne of the first themes developed in the novel is the question of what is right to do in a basic moral dilemma/social dilemma/prisoner's dilemma; where a person can cooperate with others to their collective greater payoff; or can sell them out by not cooperating, and reap even greater benefits as an individual. Yossarian is presented as having decided upon and relishing the immoral choice to such questions: "Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at [the officers' club building] and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his," which solidly casts Yossarian as an anti-hero to the reader. Yossarian (and Doc Daneeka) wonder 'why me' when it comes to taking risks when others aren't. To this, Major Danby asks Yossarian, "But suppose everybody on our side felt that way," to which Yossarian replies, "Then I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn’t I?" Another theme is the turning on their heads of notions of what people generally think of as morally right or wrong, particularly patriotism and honor, which lead most of the airmen to accept abusive lies and petty rules of bureaucrats, though Yossarian whole-heartedly disregards all such notions. When Major Major asks why he wouldn't fly more missions, Yossarian answers:
Several themes flow into one another, for example, 'that the only way to survive such an insane system is to be insane oneself,' is partially a take on Yossarian's answer to the Social dilemma (that he would be a fool to be any other way); and another theme, 'that bad men (who sell out others) are more likely to get ahead, rise in rank, and make money,' turns our notions of what is estimable on their heads as well. Heller suggests that bureaucracies, especially when run by bad or insane men, lead the members of the organization to trivialize important matters (e.g., those affecting life and death), and that trivial matters (e.g., clerical errors) assume enormous importance. Everyone in the book, even Yossarian at the beginning, is behaving insanely in their clerical decisions. While the (official) enemy are the Germans, no German ever actually appears in the story as an enemy combatant. As the narrative progresses, Yossarian comes to fear American bureaucrats more than he fears the Germans attempting to shoot down his bomber. This ironic situation is epitomized in the single appearance of German personnel in the novel, who act as pilots employed by a private entrepreneur working within the United States military. This predicament indicates a tension between traditional motives for violence and the modern economic machine, which seems to generate violence simply as another means to profit, quite independent of geographical or ideological constraints. Among the reasons Yossarian fears his commanders more than the enemy is that, as he flies more missions, the number of missions required before he can go home is continually increasing: he is always approaching the magic number, but he never reaches it. He comes to despair of ever going home and is greatly relieved when he is sent to the hospital for a condition that is almost jaundice. In Yossarian's words:
List of motifs:
[edit] CharactersFurther information: List of characters in Catch-22 [edit] InfluencesAlthough Heller always had a desire to be an author from an early age, his own experiences as a bombardier during World War II strongly influenced Catch-22;[8] however, Heller later said that he had "never had a bad officer." Czech writer Arnošt Lustig recounts in his book 3x18 that Joseph Heller personally told him that he would never have written Catch-22 had he not first read The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.[9] In 1998, some critics raised the possibility that Heller's book had questionable similarities to Louis Falstein's 1950 novel, Face of a Hero. However, Falstein himself never raised the issue between Catch-22's publication and his death in 1995, and Heller claimed never to have been aware of the obscure novel. Instead, Heller stated that the novel had been influenced by Céline, Waugh and Nabokov. Many of the similarities have been stated to be attributable to the two authors' similar experiences; both served in the U.S. Air Force on bombing crews in Italy in World War II. Their general themes and styles are quite different.[10] [edit] Allusions/references to other worksCatch-22 contains allusions to and draws inspiration from many works of literature, both classical and modern. Howard Jacobson, in his 2004 introduction to the Vintage Classics publication [11], wrote that the novel was "positioned teasingly ... between literature and literature's opposites - between Rabelais and Dickens and Dostoevsky and Gogol and Céline and the Absurdists and of course Kafka on the one hand, and on the other vaudeville and slap-stick and Bilko and Abbott and Costello and Tom and Jerry and the Goons (if Heller had ever heard of the Goons)." [edit] Iliad and OdysseyHeller casts Yossarian as a modern day, anti-heroic version of Homer's epic hero Achilles, from the Iliad. [12][13] Both works begin with the central character refusing to fight. But whereas Achilles heroically re-enters combat in response to the death of his best friend Patroclus, Yossarian is anti-heroically goaded back to combat early on by mere bureaucratic pressure. Towards the end of the novel, after the death of Nately, he resolutely refuses to fly more missions. Achilles is promised either fame or a long life, and chooses fame; Yossarian, conversely, chooses life. The analogy is explicitly suggested by Colonel Korn:
The comparison is made more subtly in a description of the chaplain's feeling of déjà vu:
Heller here alludes to Book XI of Homer's epic, the Odyssey,[citation needed] in which the hero Odysseus has descended to the spirit world of Hades and met the dead Achilles. Achilles asks Odysseus for news of the living, which Odysseus provides. In contrast, the chaplain cannot help Yossarian. The differences between Achilles and Yossarian are explained by other literary influences for Yossarian's character:
[edit] Crime and PunishmentIn a dialogue between Clevinger and Yossarian, allusion is made to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, where Yossarian is portrayed as a mirror of Raskolnikov:
Near the climax of the novel, during Yossarian's harrowing walk through Rome, the comparison with Raskolnikov is again made:
[edit] Other worksEvents in the Old Testament are regularly alluded to, and the theme of atheism is highlighted when the Chaplain questions his faith and the reliability of the Bible:
New Testament references to the life of Christ abound in the final chapters. When Yossarian returns to "The Eternal City," he finds it a hell, filled with starving children, beggars, people beating and raping each other. He then returns to the base and is offered salvation, ala Christ and the devil, by Colonel Cathcart and Lieutenant Colonel Korn. They will send him back to America if he will only agree to like them. (The Devil offered Christ salvation if he would bow down and worship him.) As Yossarian is leaving their office, he is stabbed by Nately's whore, stabbed in the rib cage as Christ was on the cross. Yossarian, like Christ, achieves resurrection when he learns that Orr has not died but has rowed to Sweden. This gives Yossarian the power to rise up and head for Sweden and safety himself. Also mentioned are Moby-Dick, the works of psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing read by the sexually obsessed Mrs Scheisskopf, Edwin Arlington Robinson's Miniver Cheevy, and allusion to William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice when describing the Chaplain as an outsider:
Heller also plays with Malvolio's lines in Twelfth Night when describing Major Major Major:
References to nineteenth century American author Washington Irving also feature, with Yossarian, Major Major, and Corporal Whitcomb all forging documents with his name at some point. The 17th-century English poet John Milton's name is briefly used for the same purpose. T.S. Eliot's name is mentioned by Ex-PFC Wintergreen as a poet that makes money (sparking a paranoid chain of phone calls between Generals Peckem and Dreedle). [edit] Explanation of the novel's titleThe title is a reference to a fictional bureaucratic stipulation which embodies multiple forms of illogical and immoral reasoning. That the catch is named exposes the high level of absurdity in the novel, where bureaucratic nonsense has risen to a level at which even the catches are codified with numbers. A magazine excerpt from the novel was originally published as Catch-18, but Heller's agent, Candida Donadio, requested that it change the title of the novel so it would not be confused with another recently published World War II novel, Leon Uris's Mila 18. The number 18 has special meaning in Judaism (it means life in Gematria) and was relevant to early drafts of the novel which had a somewhat greater Jewish emphasis.[14] The title Catch-11 was suggested, with the duplicated 1 paralleling the repetition found in a number of character exchanges in the novel, but because of the release of the 1960 movie Ocean's Eleven this was also rejected. Catch-17 was also rejected, so as not to be confused with the World War II film Stalag 17, as well as Catch-14, apparently because the publisher did not feel that 14 was a "funny number". Eventually the title came to be Catch-22, which, like 11, has a duplicated digit, with the 2 also referring to a number of déjà vu-like events common in the novel.[14] A 1950s/early 1960s anthology of war stories included a short version as "Catch-17".[15] [edit] Literary significance and criticismAs commented on by Joseph Heller himself in the preface to Catch-22 from 1994 onwards, the novel prompted polarized responses upon its first publication in the United States. Reviews in publications ranged from the very positive; The Nation ("was the best novel to come out in years"), the New York Herald Tribune ("A wild, moving, shocking, hilarious, raging, exhilarating, giant roller-coaster of a book") and the New York Times ("A dazzling performance that will outrage nearly as many readers as it delights") to the highly negative; The New Yorker ("doesn't even seem to be written; instead, it gives the impression of having been shouted onto paper," "what remains is a debris of sour jokes") and from another critic of the New York Times ("is repetitive and monotonous. Or one can say that it is too short because none of its many interesting characters and actions is given enough play to become a controlling interest"). [16] Although the novel won no awards at publication, it has stood the test of time and is seen as one of the most significant novels of the 20th century.[2] Scholar and fellow World War II veteran Hugh Nibley said it was the most accurate book he ever read about the military. [17] [edit] Rankings
[edit] Adaptations
[edit] Release detailsThis list covers the first and most recent printed publications by the original publisher Simon & Schuster as well as all other formats. Other print publishers include; Dell, Corgi, Vintage, Knopf, Black Swan, Grasset & Fasquelle and Wahlström & Widstrand.
[edit] See also[edit] Notes and references
[edit] External links
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