Personal Review

I personally enjoyed Catch-22 very much. The cyclical logic and absurd humor was amusing and enjoyable. The book was laugh out-loud-funny with witty character who were all slightly off. Despite their sheer comedic value each character had their own worth, flaws, and quirks. The dialogue was amusing although frustrating when conversations are never completed and leave you curious about character's motives and personality. Despite the sheer satire and insanity throughout the novel, I found it to be incredibly realistic in the same way that when you ask doctors which medical show on television is most realistic and the most common answer received will be Scrubs. I really enjoyed Yossarian's character. He was crazy but not to the point of not making sense. His cowardice and laziness was slightly endearing and his paranoia was very entertaining because in a war he had a valid reason to believe people were attempting to kill him when he was shot at daily. The writing style was interesting because I felt like Heller was setting us up for a joke who's punchline would not come until much later but would be well worth it. I was a little confused by the time-line at first, however I found if you keep track of the mission quota you can find what time it is relative to the book's present period.

Text Connection

Text Connection

Yossarian's suspicions and paranoia that everyone is out to kill him is actually something I can relate to myself though not quite so drastically. When I was in the 5^th grade the advanced program held a competition among all of the advanced students. It was a murder situation, although fake, it was taken very seriously and clues were difficult to come by. All of the 5^th grade teachers were involved as suspects and the clues led to more significant ones. Although there were plenty of different clues there was only one of each. Thus it became a race as well. The winner would receive a new Gamecube, tensions were high. Soon, nothing was safe. Backpacks were raided for clues, you were never left alone and others were always looking over your shoulder. Although they won't directly trying to make me lose, they were trying to win which was the same thing. I became paranoid much like Yossarian became due to soldiers indirectly endangering his life by doing what they were supposed to. I did all I could to protect my evidence much like Yossarian did for his life. And at the end of the competition, I did win, however, the Gamecube broke two weeks later.

Diction

• “And Colonel Cathcart roared off as abruptly as he'd come, whipping the jeep around with a vicious spinning of wheels that sent a spray of fine grit blowing into Major Major's face. Major Major was immobilized by the news. He stood speechless, lanky and gawking, with a scuffed basketball in his long hands as the seeds of rancor sown so swiftly by Colonel Cathcart took root in the soldiers around him who had been playing basketball with him and who had let him come as close to making friends with them as anyone had let him come before. The whites of his eyes grew large and misty as his mouth struggled yearningly and lost against the familiar, impregnable loneliness drifting in and around him again like a suffocating fog.” (57) Before Colonel Cathcart had left he had promoted Major Major to squadron commander, which had no responsibilities or privileges and was only a title, who was left devastated at the news. This is one of the few completely serious portions of Catch-22 and sets a somber mood. Major Major had always had difficulty making friends as his name had brought him much harassment. Unfortunately, just as he had begun to make friends, he was promoted and left alone once again. The diction describing his sadness, like a suffocating fog of loneliness, and the diction revolving around the Colonel, very aggressive and cruel, give the same mood that a child having his dreams crushed would bring. The feeling of Major Major as a child is emphasized by his description as lanky and the scuffed basketball in his hand, a toy, as well as his “misty” eyes makes him seem very vulnerable and reveals the authors tone of pity towards him.
• “There was no hope left. By the middle of the second week, everyone in the squadron began to look like Hungry Joe, who was not scheduled to fly and screamed horribly in his sleep. He was the only one who could sleep. All night long, men moved through the darkness outside their tents like tongueless wraiths with cigarettes. In the day-time they stared at the bomb line in futile, drooping clusters or at the still figure of Doc Daneeka sitting in front of the medical tent beneath the morbid hand-lettered sign.” (124) The diction in this passage emphasizes the hopeless mood around camp when the squadron had to fly a bombing mission in Bologna and very few believed it would be successful. Describing the soldiers in such lifeless terms such as wraiths or futile and drooping. This even further establishes a hopeless and dreary mood.

Syntax

In Catch-22 by Joseph Heller syntax plays a huge role. The sentences are interwoven through parallel structure. They are also connected by circular logic. This is often revealed through quick, back-and-forth conversations between characters. The sentences are short and fragmented in dialogue to make them snappy, fast-paced, and entertaining. Often pieces of dialogue are cut short, each character interrupting the other which adds to the realism and dynamism of the conversations themselves. Such as in one between Clevinger and Dunbar discussing the reasons Dunbar shot skeet, which he hated, in order to lengthen his life.

““Who cares?” Dunbar answered.

“I really do. I'll even go as far to concede that life seems longer if--”

“-- is longer if--”

“--is longer if-- is longer? All right, is longer if it's filled with periods of boredom and discomfort, b--”

“Guess how fast?” Dunbar said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“They go,” Dunbar explained.

“Who?”

“Years.”

“Years?”

“Years,” said Dunbar. “Years, years, years.””

This same cyclical and repetitive syntax is used all throughout Catch-22 and the brevity, incomplete thoughts, and never finished conversations support Heller's purpose of displaying the insanity and nonsense of war and its effect on those fighting it.

Rhetorical Devices

• Alliteration: “'Colonel Cathcart was a slick, successful, slipshod...'” (187), “Colonel Cathcart” (187), “Doc Deneeka” (128); Heller uses alliteration often in Catch-22 in Yossarian's descriptions of his fellow servicemen, conversation for added flow and humor, and even in the characters' names. This novel is mainly satirical to the point of being inane and nonsensical and the alliteration of characters' names only adds to the humor and inanity. In Yossarian's descriptions of his fellow men in arms he will often begin a string of alliterated adjectives which eventually lead to nonsensical or contradicting adjectives and add to Yossarian's hinted insanity and wacky character as well as showing his true opinions (usually negative) of others by the connotation the words take.
• Repetition: “'Yes, Yossarian. That's right. Yossarian. Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of name is Yossarian?'”(78) “Major Major Major Major” (82) The repetition of words throughout a character's speech is a common occurrence throughout Catch-22 and gives all speech a fast-paced feeling. The dialogue becomes less important and more like ramblings and character development rather than anything of depth. The repetition also adds to the feeling that many of the characters are categorically insane which very well may be due to their behaviors and constant claims that one or the other is crazy. The repetition in the name Major Major Major Major, later referred to as just Major Major rather than his full name, is purely for a humorous aspect and strips the character of much of the respect the reader may have had for his as he is not as nonsensical and inane as many of Heller's other characters.
• Symbolism/ Personification: The dead man in Yossarian's tent actually refers the the deceased Lieutenant Mudd's personal belongings (although the commanding officers deny him ever existing) which none of the men laid claim on prior to his death. Yossarian often speaks to his things as if he were actually there and even refers to him as “a pest”(22). However when Yossarian's new “roomies” easily dispose of Lt. Mudd's belongings which concerns Yossarian that he could be disposed of just as easily (which is intensified by his belief that everyone is out to kill him). The Man in White is a symbol of the government bureaucracy in the war. The man in white is a soldier in a full body cast and is thus unrecognizable. He is replaced every so often however the men never notice this and believe it is the same man (despite that he has “died” many times). This is to show the way soldiers are treated as generic units and constantly replaced with little second thought.