Essay about Catch 22, by Joseph Heller

Yossarian is called into the office of Colonel Cathcart after destroying Kraft’s plane. “’All right,’ Colonel Cathcart decided. ‘We’ll give him a medal for being brave enough to go around over the target twice. And we’ll make him a captain too’” (Heller 139).

Compare and contrast the ways Cisneros and Piercy feel about names in general and their own names in the Vignette “My Name” and the poem “’If I had been called Sabrina or Ann,’ she said.” Comment on the language and language techniques used.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma is an extremely popular game and way of thinking about social interactions and also economics. It judges how people work together and against each other. It helps us understand what governs the balance between cooperation and competition in business, in politics, and in social settings. The two players in the game can choose between two moves, either 'cooperate' or 'defect'. The idea is that each player gains when both cooperate, but if only one of them cooperates, the other one, who defects, will gain more. If both defect, both lose. The whole game situation and its different outcomes can be summarised with the example provided below, hypothetical situations are imagined with the example below

Yossarian’s sinthome, which prevents him from losing his mind completely, can be numerous things. It could be Yossarian 's insistence to survive the war in spite of the constant attempts of nearly everyone around him to kill him. It could be his fight for human decency in the face of the horror of war. Or, quite possibly, it could be his struggle to prove to the big Other that he will surmount the catch 22. The war affected Heller more than he was willing to admit at the beginning of his career; however, the more he wrote, the more he was able to deal with his demons. As such, the real story of his war trauma slowly unfolded. The war experience left Heller as a "tortured, funny, deeply peculiar human being" (Blake, 2011). Heller’s sinthome during the war, it seems, was his writing. His writing is his relief as well. It 's his unraveling agent, and in that manner, it 's therapeutic. One of his roommates had brought with him a typewriter, giving a means for Heller 's burning desires to relieve stress through his writing. His distinguished career in writing may very well have stopped him losing his mind in the harrowing nature of war (Blake, 2011).

It is not uncommon to sometimes hear or see what here in America is considered to be a strange or different name and decide to make fun of it or the holder of that name. This is a major obstacle that an Iranian immigrant named Firoozeh Dumas, author of “The ‘F-Word” had to face. She illustrates a picture using words about the hardships that her name has brought upon her during her entire life. Throughout her essay, she uses real-life examples, humor, and a conversational tone to show her audience the poverty she faced when transitioning from the Iranian culture to the American culture.

Catch-22 is based towards the end of World War II on a small island of the coast of Italy called Pianosa. In war people are dying all around and nobody can really do anything about it. An example of war cruelty is when Heller writes, “Nately’s death almost killed the chaplain” (378). Not only is Nately’s death a cruel death, but war cruelty is also present in the form of grief. The chaplain is experiencing the cruelty of his comrade dying. In many other war novels they are often times quite gorey. Catch-22 on the other hand is more of a story on the behind the scenes action of war; however there is one specific scene that is gorey. Heller writes, “That was the mission on which Yossarian lost his nerve. Yossarian lost his nerve on the mission to Avignon because Snowden lost his guts” (224). Snowden was just a young gunner who unfortunately was killed. The fate of war is cruel to this young boy; nobody even knew who he really was. He died there in Yossarian’s arm. His death was cruel to Yossarian because it discouraged him, and caused emotional trauma. War is a natural human interaction the is common, and it is necessary in certain circumstances. Cruelty is unavoidable in war because it is emotionally draining on everyone

Immigrants, since the mass immigration in the 19th century, have been changing their names to sound more American. Most feel that if they add an American name they will be more successful. Firoozeh Dumas’s excerpt “The ‘F Word’” was taken from Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America, published in 2003. Dumas tells her story about what growing up with an Iranian name feels like. She came to America, at the age of seven, knowing that challenges would arise, but what she did not know was someone would change her name into a complete insult and judge her because of it. Hoping she would make it through these obstacles she stepped blindly into the United States. Dumas tells her story by writing with a precise style of writing; using irony, metaphors, and excellent word choice, making it easy to understand her arguments.

the name is a form of positive respect towards the Native Americans. This becomes a

It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist. It was an odious, alien, distasteful name, a name that just did not inspire confidence. It was not at all like such clean, crisp, honest, American names such as Catchcart, Peckem and Dreedle.”

To Yossarian he was “living” the dream, because he could fake pains and need to stay in the hospital for days at a time until he “felt better” which kept him out of flying missions. While this was “everything he wanted”, we later learn that Colonel Cathcart (complete ignorant sun of a gun) keeps raising the missions the soldiers have to fly until they are allowed to be grounded and this actually hurts Yossarian’s plan of staying here until the war is over. Although the hospital seemed to be his paradise, no one liked him there but let him stay even though some knew he was lying about the pains in his liver, bringing up one of the several reasons his squadron was very contradictory and messed

Heller's principle emphasis is on the internal struggle with conflicting values and the characters' evolution. He creates a quandary that Yossarian explores throughout the novel, and establishes Yossarian's world as one turned upside down by war. After exploring this chaotic condition and the mess it creates on people's values, Yossarian finally arrives at his decision to withdraw from the conflict. In the first half of the war, Yossarian runs. As he comes to terms with himself, he takes responsibility and explores life beyond himself.

Heller shows Yossarian’s attempts to escape the war through a series of absurd scenarios that highlight his sense of desperation, and his mental and emotional state. He tries to avoid additional missions and hopes for discharge through deception related to his health. The desire to escape the war is revealed by Heller early in the novel. Heller describes that Heller associates the faking of an injury with the desire to escape, as Yossarian knows that if he says that the pain has gone away, he will be sent right back to combat. This is also evident later in the novel, as Yossarian, " Heller depicts that Yossarian tries to disappear and withdraw, not only from the war but from those he had been corresponding with at home.

In short, he does not care that his actions endanger his mens lives and he does not honor the bond between soldiers and their officers. Every action is designed to please and impress his superiors as well as the public. In chapter 19, Colonel Cathcart and the chaplain discuss group prayers before each mission. The colonel’s motive is to get his name in the Saturday Evening Post, desiring fame and recognition. He also wanted to exclude any mention religion: “Haven’t you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys and God?

Laughing in the face of war and death, literally, is one of the things that make the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller such an intriguing and original story. It was written in 1961, a time when, due to the fighting of the Second World War, all war novels were written with a dark and dreary tone, while still trying to continue the pre-conceived romantic notions about war. However, Joseph Heller strips away all of the romantic pretense, and pulling heavily on his own Air Force experience during WWII, presents war in its most raw, un-censored version. It takes away thoughts of being the amazing hero, and winning medals, and replaces them with the screwed up, bureaucratic way that we fight wars.

The meaning of names is a central focus of the novel, because names define people. Their worth and functions are summarized by the names. To some extent, the names also discourage originality. This occurs especially to