Essay on Satire, Sarcasm, and Irony in Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut uses satire in the topics of war, aliens, fate and the reasons for life itself. In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the author uses many literary devices to bring across his point including black humor, irony, wit and sarcasm. He mainly uses satire throughout the book. Satire is a literary device found in works of literature that uses irony and humor to mock social convention, another work of art, or anything its author thinks ridiculous to make a point.

He believes that his officers and crew members are insane since the officers keep increasing the number of bombing runs a person must complete before being released from duty, and his crew members all aggravate him by crashing their planes, working for both sides of the war, and trying to convince Yossarian to run more missions. Everyone at the base thinks Yossarian is crazy, but Yossarian thinks the same about everyone else. In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, most literature critics assume that everyone around Yossarian is completely psychotic, but if one were to observe the novel from the perspective of Orr, Clevinger, or one of Yossarian’s crew members, they would realize that Yossarian could easily escape his military duty by running away on a mission rather than dealing with the bureaucracy of the military and trying to feign illness and craziness. Therefore, the author utilizes dark humor that exposes the absurdity of the war and the military, dialogue that displays the insanity between Yossarian, the officers, and crew, and the centralized biased

Critics Nibir Ghosh, Leon Seltzer, and Sanford Pinsker argue that human behavior is corrupted and confused by fighting in wars, and that the oppressive military system is what defiles the morality of the soldiers. The three critics similarly reflect on how Heller’s satirical writing style adds to the confusion and how the rigid military structure pushes men to insanity. Ghosh and Seltzer both analyze how each man’s struggle to remain sane and alive opposes the military bureaucracy’s ideas and systems of power. Pinsker’s ideas differ slightly, because he instead analyzes how the public views the corruption and absurdity of the military after Catch 22 was written.

Catch 22 strongly reminded me of the book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. What ties the two together is not that they both take place in World War II, but that neither author capitalized on that point. They were merely books about war and the destructive nature of it, as well as the strain it puts on everyone with connections to it. The two main characters are not so alike. Billy Pilgram, the protagonist in Vonnegut’s novel, is more of a quiet and passive man who doesn’t seem to want much in life but to exist. Yossarian is also strange, but because he is loud and disruptive about things nobody wants to think about. Their differences is what makes them so alike – neither Pilgram nor Yossarian are conventional war heroes, or anyone in their respective books for that matter. Characters in either book suffer from stress and fear and even madness. The only ones who are ‘eager for war’ and ‘patriotic’ are obnoxious and disliked, such as Roland Weary in Slaughterhouse Five or Colonel Cathcart in Catch 22. The two characters are also similar in their view of death. Billy Pilgram saw all of his life, and ‘knew’ that he would, eventually, die. He even knew the situation that would cause his death. In Catch 22, Yossarian knows he will die, be it from war or natural causes on the outside.

Even then, it still managed to receive some highly unfavorable reviews by east coast critics (Arbeiter). The New York Times reviewer, Richard Stern, stated, “Its author, Joseph Heller, is like a brilliant painter who decides to throw all the ideas in his sketchbooks onto one canvas, relying on their charm and shock to compensate for the lack of design.” The following day, New York Times reviewer Orville Prescott, criticized the work by saying, “Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, is not an entirely successful novel. It is not even a good novel. It is not even a good novel by conventional standards.”

In Catch-22 an awareness of morality is shown in the soldiers through their fears. Many of the soldiers are brought together by their fear in death, or returning home with an injury. Heller uses both satire and black comedy to represent the fear that reminds the soldiers of their mortality. In Chapter 7, Corporal Snark poisons the sweet potatoes with soap, and the men all eat it. Heller used satire in this scene because it portrays how

(Heller, 8) Heller also uses exaggeration in the story to make the already dramatic scenes to the next level. Catch-22 uses sarcastic and agonistic diction, “You’re wrong,” answered the old man. “Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble.” (Heller, 358)

What the heck was Heller up to? That is a simple, yet daunting question. In the 1961 novel Catch 22 Joseph Heller was poking fun at not only the United States Army but the entire human race. He often would point out how there was a lot of disorientation in the army and how nine out of ten times no one would know what was going on. Heller uses copious amounts of satire to tell his story and explain the bewilderment. He uses a lot of comic allusions to make peoples names mean different things, for instance Lieutenant Scheisskopf actually means shi*t head, and Lieutenant Colonel Korn’s name doesn’t necessarily have a meaning like Scheisskopf’s does but his name still has symbolism built in it. Heller has a twisted sense of humor and the way he went about telling his story made you laugh and often think of people that reminded you of the characters. He not only uses comic allusions to tell his story but often uses dark in instances you wouldn’t think are funny. Some of the dark humor Heller uses may be offensive to some but others may view it as comic relief. The novel itself has one main character that goes by the name Yossarian who is the protagonist of the novel. Throughout the novelossarian is trying to get “grounded” so he can go back home but there’s one catch, catch 22. Catch 22 is a no-win situation, every time Yossarian would try to be grounded the doctor would always bring up this catch. It appeared multiple times throughout the storyline and

When looking at Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch-22, the context is certainly not limited to just the World War II setting. The readers are welcome to conclude to their own interpretations and live the happenings of the book in a situation close to themselves. The Deconstruction theory is a complex and difficult theory to grasp, and Catch-22 meets the characteristics of this

Joseph Heller details the mental and emotional trials of war through the main character Yossarian, in his novel Catch-22. Heller was born on May 1, 1923. He was raised by his two parents, Isaac and Lena Heller. Once he was old enough, he enlisted with the United States Air Force and became a B-25 wing bombardier. He flew a total of 60 missions, and even became first lieutenant. Between 1948 and 1950, Heller attended multiple colleges including the University of Southern California, New York University, and Columbia University (“Joseph Heller”). Heller published his first major work, Catch-22, in 1961. He then became a serious full-time writer by 1975. His major works include Something Happened in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979, God Knows in

Almost inevitably, one will encounter a situation where there is no escape because of contradictions; better known as a no win situation, a deadlock, a double bind. Uniquely, it was indeed a novel that first embodied this situation, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Correspondingly, the situation embraced the novel’s title and the rightful moniker was introduced. Nevertheless, Catch-22 is not solely a paradoxical novel meant to elicit laughter; Catch-22 is a novel gorged with literary devices and characters that satirize government’s unscrupulous nature.

Joseph Heller’s critically acclaimed novel Catch-22 is an example of a novel that was never meant to be “just a story”. Every chapter peels away a layer of analytical depth in which none but the most sophisticated minds can fully conquer. Robert M. Young’s psychoanalytical approach to Catch-22 can be divided into three interpretations: why his focus on the psychoanalytical structure is correct, how his ideas accurately reflect Joseph Heller’s intended purpose for the novel, and how his analysis impacts the overall perception of the novel.

A traditional satire is intended to show the foolishness of humankind in a comical way. Exaggeration, distortion and irony are also present in the satire to display weaknesses for the purpose to mock or just for the fun of it (Gosher, 2016:203). Heller’s novel, Catch-22 can be categorized as a comical satire because of the way World War II is being displayed (Winkler, 2009). In this essay I will discuss the satirical writing style of the novel and thereafter a conclusion will be formed if it would have been effective had Heller chosen a more serious style of writing.

In particular, readers of the satirical war novel, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, would notably name the novel and Heller to be unrealistic and crude in humor. Although sometimes gruesome, Catch-22 is more than just a war novel, it exposes the American government through it’s corrupted morals through the main protagonist Yossarian who endures the many consequences of a “catch-22”. Similarly, within the new science fiction drama, Stranger Things, the characters’ must face the consequences of trying to evade being caught in their own “catch-22” without losing their friend. The time period plays a pivotal role in the characters reaction to the set-backs created as a result of government decisions within a war. Under the circumstances of trying to

When the narrative situation itself appears to demand the reader’s strict attention, Vonnegut’s use of humorous language diverts our attention to the novel’s language instead. His use of bizarre, funny-sounding words that are incongruous with the seriousness of the situations they describe such as “flibbertigibbet” (29) during Billy’s confrontation with his daughter and describing Billy’s rescuers (for the plane crash) as “golliwogs”