Catch 22
Soldiers serving during World War II faced hard times while fighting for their country. They were separated from their families and the traditional lives that they knew, and were suddenly thrown into a life of hardships and absurdities. As a result, they became alienated from the rest of the world and began to look at their lives in a pessimistic view. Heller portrays this separation from the traditional views through characters like Yossarian, Major Major, and the Chaplain throughout Catch 22. These characters play a major part in the story line as well as the themes presented in the novel such as absurdity of the war. Absurdity is used throughout the book and can be viewed as the illogical and pointless actions of the troops in combat and the officers controlling them. The absurdities that the characters had to face changed their views from positive to depressing feelings and alienated them from everyone else who was oblivious to the war. Specifically, Heller uses the alienation of Yossarian, Major Major, and the Chaplain to bring forth the issues of absurdity and hopelessness in World War II. Heller uses the actions and thoughts of Yossarian to convey his existentialistic message of war and the uselessness of the men fightin
Heller truly reveals the hopelessness of this novel through Yossarian, Major Major, and the Chaplain. Heller's main points of the novel are to bring the horrors and preposterousness of the war to light. This novel can even be considered as an existential novel. Existentialism is the pessimistic view of life and all the absurdities with it. The characters in Catch 22 basically just see the downside of everything and they consider the life around them to be pointless. They can not find a reason in their life and are alienated from everyone else. With their alienation, Heller successfully brings the absurdities of the war to life. Heller also uses Major Major's alienation from the rest of the troops to show the nonsense and hopelessness of the war. Major Major's way of escape from the war is playing basketball with the other soldiers. But when Colonel Cathcart tells him that he is the new squadron commander, his old basketball friends discarded him and he becomes alienated and separated from everyone. The squadron commander does not actually have any more responsibility, but all the other troops hate him for it anyway. He is crushed and decides to completely isolate himself away from everyone else by hiding in his new office. "From now on, I don't want anyone to come in to see me while I'm here" (108). He is lost and can not find any reason for the war
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 917
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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