Isolation and the Individual in Satire
Nothing is more apparent in the genre of satire than the ridicule of the vices and immoralities of society. This focussing on the defects of society as a whole doubles as a function of this genre of literature and a framework within the plot or theme of the novel or story. The satirist emphasizes the ugly ramifications of society, but to do so the satirist needs a vehicle for the observation of society's actions and effects as a whole. This society is often represented as a microcosm or series of microcosms along a journey and the vehicle for the observation of the presented society is an individual located on the outside. To ensure that the individual is fully isolated from society and thus capable of objectively observing the follies of the world, the individual is given characteristics of a distinctive identity. The concept of an individual may be summarized in a statement made by Rick Hoyle: "The human self is a self-organizing, interactive system of thoughts, feelings, and motives that characterizes an individual. The self is reflexive and dynamic in nature: responsive yet stable" (Hoyle 2). Therefore, the outsider must be an individual, fully capable of organizing his or her thoughts and emotions and the consequences of
It made me so sick... I ain't agoing to tell all that happened-it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night, to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them-lots of times I dream about them. (Twain 137) Yossarian, as a character, is flawed. His treatment of women is certainly questionable, he drinks, and he visits whorehouses. When Yossarian was flying with Milo to distract Orr from watching where Milo gets his eggs; "Yossarian and Orr found themselves jammed into the same double bed with the two twelve-year-old twenty-eight-year-old prostitutes, who turned out to be oily and obese and who kept waking them up all night to switch partners" (Heller 239). Besides his behavior in regards to women, some would say he shirks his duty by hiding in the hospital and refusing to fly missions. However, as discussed with Huckleberry Finn, the satirist creates the protagonist of the satiric novel with flaws to create a believable tension between the individual and society. Joseph Heller makes Yossarian's multiple flights to the hospital bed seem very plausible, rational and sane. However, despite his flaws, if Yossarian were a perfect individual, and always kept his temper, followed commands unquestionably, and moralized over other men's actions, Joseph Heller's Catch 22 would not have served any purpose but to chronicle Everyman's conquest by society. The novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is also a satiric novel and was published first in the 1960's. The novel's protagonist follows many of the trends that satirists apply to their main characters. The main character in Cat's Cradle is John-or Jonah-and he is an outsider like Huck Finn and Yossarian. His trip to Illium is the first place that the reader comes in contact with John, and his actions and words seem only to accentuate his pessimism. When he first meets Breed, John contrasts himself with him. "Breed...was civilized, optimistic, capable, serene. I, by contrast, felt bristly, diseased, cynical. I had spent the night with Sandra. My soul seemed as foul as smoke from burning cat fur. I thought the worst of everyone..."(Vonnegut 27). When he returns to New York his apartment is ruined by a nihilist that he barely knew and his cat is dead, and he is suspended without a place to belong. His history of pessimism has left him alone and divorced twice: "My second wife had left me on the grounds that I was too pessimistic for an optimist to live with" (Vonnegut 77). John's description of himself before Bokonism sums up his past as a pessimist well: "When I was a younger man-two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago...I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended. It was to be a Christian book. I was a Christian then" (Vonnegut 1). At the beginning of his journey from Illium to San Lorenzo, John is left with nothing. He leaves to San Lorenzo almost on a whim, after falling in love with a girl in a photograph. He comes into San Lorenzo having shed his past and society, with no possessions and no place in life. John is an individual on the outside of society, too pessimist to be an optimist, not enough of an idealist to be a realist. He belongs to no one and to no where, and he steps onto San Lorenzo knowing only about the island what he read in a book. Kurt Vonnegut has created a character that, almost completely, is an outsider from everywhere he has been and to the place, he is going. Heller, Joseph. Catch 22. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1994New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1994.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Huck Finn, Joseph Heller's, Joseph Heller, Mark Twain, Rick Hoyle, Breed John, , Pianosa Yossarian, Tom Sawyer, Cape Cod, huckleberry finn, huck finn, mark twain, catch 22, cat's cradle, san lorenzo, joseph heller, society huck, heller's catch 22, heller's catch, joseph heller's, individual outside society, joseph heller's catch, catch 22 kurt, 22 kurt vonnegut's,
Approximate Word count = 3466
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)
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