Catch-22: Encyclopedia - Catch-22

Catch-22

Catch-22 is a 1961 novel by American novelist Joseph Heller. It was adapted into a feature film in 1970

The novel follows Captain Yossarian, a fictional World War II US Army Air Corps B-25 bombardier, and a number of other American airmen during World War II. They are based on the island of Pianosa, west of Italy.

A sequel to Catch-22, Closing Time, was written by Heller and published in 1994.

Catch-22 - The title

A magazine excerpt from the novel was originally published as "Catch-18," but Heller's publisher requested that he change the title of the novel to "Catch-22" so it wouldn't be confused with another recently published World War II novel, Leon Uris's Mila 18.

Catch-22 - The concept

Catch-22 is a critique of bureaucracy in general. The phrase "catch-22" has come into common use to mean a cyclical conundrum, or "no-win situation" based on its meaning in the book as described below. A catch-22 situation is also inherently self-defeating: the very act of performing it prevents it from happening.

Within the book, "catch-22" is a military rule, the circular logic of which most notably prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions:

• One may only be excused from flying bombing missions on the grounds of insanity;
• One must assert one's insanity to be excused on this basis;
• One who requests to be excused is presumably in fear for his life. This is taken to be proof of his sanity, and he is therefore obliged to continue flying missions;
• One who is truly insane presumably would not make the request. He therefore would continue flying missions, even though as an insane person he could of course be excused from them simply by asking.

As in the above example, much of Heller's prose in Catch-22 is circular and repetitive, exemplifying in its form the structure of a catch-22.

Catch-22 is also invoked at other points in the novel to justify various other actions. At one point, victims of harassment by military agents quote the agents as having explained one of Catch-22's most macabre and rococo provisions in this fashion: Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating. An old woman explains: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing." Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 doesn't actually exist, but that because the powers that be claim it does and the world believes that it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, it is worse than if it had existed because there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. The combination of brute force with specious legalistic justification is one of the book's primary motifs.

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.

Catch-22 - Characters in the book

See also

• Catch-22 (logic)
• Hobson's choice
• Morton's fork
• Paradoxes
• No-win situation
• Antinomy
• Trial by drowning
• The Good Soldier Svejk

Categories: 1961 books | American novels | Satirical books | Famous numbers | Catch-22 | Modern Library 100 best novels | Time Magazine 100 best novels

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Catch-22", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki