Catch-22: Encyclopedia II - Catch-22 - Themes

Catch-22 - Themes

Another theme is that of the folly of patriotism and honor, which leads most of the airmen to accept Catch-22s and being lied to by abusive bureaucrats, but which Yossarian never accepts as a legitimate answer to his complaints.

One of the many strange aspects of this book is that, despite the fact that the (official) villains are the Germans, no German soldiers ever actually appear in the story. As the narrative progresses, Yossarian comes to fear American bureaucrats more than he fears the Germans attempting to shoot down his bomber.

The pacing of Catch-22 is frenetic, its tenor is intellectual, and its humor is largely absurdist — but with grisly moments of realism interspersed. As the Czech writer Arnošt Lustig[1] recounts in his latest book 3x18[2], Joseph Heller personally told him that he would never have written Catch-22 had he not first read The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek. Some would also trace the influences on Catch-22 to the novel, A Fable, by William Faulkner.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Themes", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki