Essay Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and World War II

The author's purpose was to give readers a more in depth look into what happens in war.

For years, war and the honour of war has been built up and glorified 'unfairly by the media in cartoons, movies, games, news and even songs as well as warmongers trying to cash in on unsuspecting and gullible young men who want to be recognized as heroes.

How did propaganda help Hitler rise to power? This is a question I found myself asking when I read about his power and manipulation over the Germans. I started to wonder how he got into power in the first place. One thing he did was convince the Germans that there were threats against them. Whether that be with the Jewish people or surrounding countries. He took the fear that he put into them and used it to get the people to trust him. That is in a way a form of propaganda, or what the point of propaganda is. He convinced people that Jews, communist

Part of the irony that envelops Catch-22 is the use of it's extremely creative dialogue and scenes in the story. Heller places the reader in a atmosphere where comedy shouldn't be able to exist at all, but Heller somehow puts a reverse on the normality and creates a memorable scene. "Heller invents dialogue rich in humor and pathos in order to fit the serious religious and philosophical implications of 'Catch-22' into his comic novel." (Colmer 212)

The glorified act of war is often staged in historical literature by idolizing the soldiers who partake in the event. Soldiers are made to seem intrepid, ruthless and muscular, each with a ceaseless desire to fight valiantly for their countries. Timothy Findley and Kurt Vonnegut discard this typical hero archetype in their anti-war novels by portraying the soldiers who fight in the war as the men they are, not as the templates of heroes they are expected to fit, in furtherance of strengthening their anti-war stances. Findley and Vonnegut illustrate their protagonists as a tragic hero and an anti-hero, respectively, in order to juxtapose the atrocities of war with the flawed humanness of man and to challenge the stereotypical image of a

Adolf Hitler used propaganda to turn people against Jews, blacks and about everyone else that was not German and he also use it to make people want to join Nazi army. Franklin Roosevelt or F.D.R also use the science of propaganda to turn people against Germany, Italy and Japan. Hitler had first become aware of propaganda and its uses before the First World War. During the war he saw the effect of British propaganda on the soldiers of the Central Powers. Later on after the war Hitler wrote a book called Mein Kampf (My Struggle), he devoted two whole chapters to the study and practice of propaganda. He once said “the psyche of the masses,” he wrote, “is not receptive to anything that is weak. They are like a woman, whose psychic state determined less by abstract reason than by an emotional longing for a strong force will complement her nature. Likewise, the masses love a commander, and despise a petitioner” (Hitler). After many speeches and papers he wrote on

Vonnegut knows that there will “always be wars, [and] that they were as easy to stop as glaciers” (Vonnegut 3). However, he hopes to change the perception of war in people’s minds and convince them that war is immoral. For this reason, he implies that readers should not be like Billy Pilgrim, the pathetic antihero. Billy does not tell his son about the horrors of war and allows his son to become a Green Beret, a perpetuator of war and death (Vonnegut 24). In contrast, Vonnegut, as a character in the book, instructs his sons not to “take part in massacres” and to “express contempt for people who think we need [massacre] machinery” (Vonnegut 19). Both characters know that they cannot stop war. However, while Billy passively accepts war, Vonnegut actively protests war and believes that people are morally responsible to view war as

world. This war is also considered one of the most costly wars because of all the people

Joseph Heller’s 2011 novel Catch-22 reveals many different but unique characters within a particular story during World War Two in an intuitive third person narration. Set in Italy, the main character, Yossarian is an outraged bombardier that is furious because thousands of people that he has never met in his life are trying to kill him above the skies. Although he is the main protagonist in the story he is not truly a hero due to that instead of saving his friends, he first tries to save himself from death itself. His real troubles are within his own Army which multiply the number of missions the men must accomplish in order to complete their service within the military. If the men themselves try to exclude themselves from these missions,

Satire is woven throughout the novel to expose the faults of American institutions within the military, such as religion and war. Religion is depicted through the chaplain, who gradually

In the times of World War 2 there was a man by the name of Winston Churchill. He was known as one of the most influential people in his time. He made speeches to the families of the Jews who were killed during the war. His beliefs were very different from others in his time. He was on the side of the people. He wanted the leaders in the German Army to get a just punishment for their crime.

Set during WWII, ​Catch­22 is centered around Yossarian a U.S. officer, and depicts his misadventures throughout life. In order for Yossarian to keep his identity safe, his skills are put to the test against an illogical military system (Kramer Internet). The Air Force regulation asserts that a man is considered insane if he willingly flies dangerous combat missions. Ultimately, Yossarian's eyes are opened up to the deadly truth of language being power (Warren 380).

The first time reading the novel, it can be described as a satire with plenty of black humor. However, upon rereading it and paying further attention to the syntax and diction, one can begin to see the novel through Young’s eyes. “The novel – one of the century’s greatest and one whose subtleties I have only begun to convey – turns on what happens at the intersection of character and the institutionalized reifications and cruelties of debased societies and societies at war, internally and with nominally external enemies” (Young 8). To summarize, Young is stating how the pressures of war and the expectations of society lean heavily on the shoulders of the individual. These kinds of burdens induce heavy psychological damages along with the troubles of external problems (i.e. the “nominally external enemies”). After reading Young’s critical review, one gains the ability to read the novel in a new light, and further appreciate the enormous complexity Joseph Heller wove through the sentences. For example, page 356 says, “It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice” (Young 8). The complexity—as well as the raw truth—of the above sentence shows the kinds

This is paralleled by Cima and her father when Heller has Pops state, “You shoulda kept on. Nobody bothers us here” (191) as he is tying Hig up. Then, a few seconds later, has Pops refer to Cima and her gun skills by saying, “She’s very good. I taught her” (193). In fact, the way that Heller phrases this makes it sound as if they have killed for their solitude before and would be willing to do so again. These parallel each other because they both represent how strangers are seen only as danger and a disruption to their day-to-day live. Additionally, they show how they are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure any intrusions are dealt with accordingly, usually ending in the death of the trespasser.

The author, Joseph Heller, creates the character of Yossarian as a way to express his true beliefs of what heroism is. The book Catch-22 has impacted many people with how it refers to war and the way the soldiers fought and survived it. Joseph Heller created a new way of how to view the war and how most of the soldiers felt through it at that time. The approach that Heller took towards the meaning of war and what truly happens in it was formed when he himself served. Today, some soldiers still have that feeling, but not quite as strong as back then.