“Catch-22” is a unique and inimitable novel in its genre by the great writer Joseph Heller. Thus, this work describes the life of the American military during World War II. In the narrative, American pilots are based on one of the Italian islands, making raids on German-held positions from time to time. One of the novel’s main characters is Captain Yossarian, an American pilot, and an Assyrian by nationality. This once brave and good bombardier begins to hate everything connected with the war, combat sorties, when his comrade dies in Yossarian’s hands during the next raid on the bridge, which had to be bombed. Yossarian tries to evade combat missions by all means, but he fails since the rate of departures is constantly being increased, and doctors are forbidden to give an exemption from flights. Yossarian begins to limit himself to the appearance of completing tasks, patriotism, and responsibility.
In addition, Yossarian is not alone in this situation; absolutely everyone does it. Consequently, the military leadership is incompetent; Yossarian’s colleagues also do not want to die and do not see the point in performing ridiculous combat tasks. Moreover, counterintelligence is ridiculous, and bombs are thrown anywhere; formalism defeats reality, all tasks are performed only by orders and not by initiative. Under cover of their official duties, the bosses create a large international syndicate to trade scarce goods, and the titles are not given for military merit.
The sense of absurdity continues to grow stronger with the development of the narrative. With each new episode, the central motifs of the work acquire greater semantic fullness and a variety of interpretations. This is largely facilitated by the multifaceted construction of the novel. A living person is formally considered dead, the head of the syndicate takes contracts from the enemy to bomb their positions, counterintelligence accuses the innocent, and the most inadequate military receives titles. Yossarian, meanwhile, flatly refuses combat missions, risking being put on trial. His leadership sees this, and he offers him a deal: he is sent to the United States with honors, he promoted in rank, and he must “make friends” with the command, glorifying them in every possible way. Yossarian agrees, but on leaving the building, he is wounded by the beloved woman of the deceased pilot, Yossarian’s friend. This woman blamed him for the death of her friend.
Yossarian ends up in the hospital with soulless, indifferent, unprofessional doctors, precisely the same as the pilots. At the hospital, Yossarian decided to abandon the deal with the command, as he did not want to become a scoundrel concerning those who were already dead and those who would continue to fly. Instead, he decided to escape from the army and start a normal life, taking responsibility for everything. Heller’s “Catch-22” ends with a description of how an inspired Yossarian prepares to escape.
The absurd “Catch-22” is formulated as follows: insanity is the reason for getting an exemption from flying. To get an exemption, the pilot must officially apply for it. At the same time, the appeal for release confirms the normality of the pilot (since he strives to make his life easier, which means he is normal); therefore, he cannot be released. It is impossible to think of any war when such an absurd farce permeates the entire army from top to bottom. Most normal people are forced to resort to “abnormal” methods to be at least able to protest against the situation. And the most ordinary people are those who are just considered crazy (Yossarian, army chaplain).
Chaotic, at first glance, the text of the first chapters by the end of the work acquires a clear structure; disparate episodes are lined up in a single event series. Moreover, as one plunges into the atmosphere of “Catch-22”, the laughing element is reduced to bitter sarcasm and practically disappears in the last chapters. At the beginning of the novel, the absurd is perceived more as an artistic device gradually reveals itself as an existentialist category. The same event is described repeatedly, shown through the prism of the life views of different characters, the same facts are presented in different situations, each time forcing the reader to look at them from a different angle, and from this polyphony, the moral and philosophical problems of the novel gradually develops like a mosaic.
In this general insanity and degradation situation, the main enemies are not real opponents but their commanders and responsible persons. The novel’s characters have talking names and surnames; their appearance and character traits are depicted grotesquely. Each of them is important to the author not as a socio-psychological type but as a carrier of a particular view of the world. It is from them that more losses and destruction occur than from the actions of a real enemy. These people deprive the meaning of what people should be doing and force them to resort to tricks and tricks to resist senselessness and absurdity.
Without welcoming either one or the other, a person still has to choose a behavior option from two harmful alternatives, which is why absurd paradoxes arise, for example, when it is more excellent for pilots to die from illness or drunkenness on the ground than to die in the air, or when it is easier to consider a person dead formally, even if he is alive, or fulfilling absurd orders (“you can go to Major Major’s office, he’s not here right now”). The anti-war character of Heller’s novel Catch-22 can be traced through a satirical description of what is happening: stupid commanders, their indifferent subordinates who carry out meaningless orders are ridiculed.
Work Cited
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Simon & Schuster, 1996.