Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

[Prof]

2004.09.25 21:20(gmt+2)

My dear lady,
The plot being the absurdity of war! and the absurd lenghts some of us would go to in order to cope with such. Mr. Heller did write a sequal to C22, but as I have preciously opined: the time has passed his type of character by, to such an extent that they have become boring.

Oh, can anyone sneak in an answer to whether there is somewhere around here where one can post a writ? (Not poetry).

Thanking you,
Prof.

[Capnplank]

I found it pretty slow (and confusing) for the first one or two hundred pages, but somewhere around 300-400 I couldn't put the thing down and it became one of my favorite books. Up to you if you wanna struggle through, since you may not like it in the end anyways.

[IRIAF]

Hi. I'm new here and I'm reading Catch-22 in my school.

My teacher gave me this assignment. Below is the assignment.

[Choose a character in the novel that you think needs some "psychological help." Take on a persona of a psychiatrist, counselor, etc.

What are some of the questions that you would want to ask this person?
Why?
How do you think the character would respond?

Develop at least 10 questions. After each question, determine what kind of answer the character would make and write that response. The question that follows should be a response to the character's answer to question 1. All of the remaining questions should be done the same way. ]

Now, I need help from you guys who have read the book. Here is what I have so far and tell me if it is a replica of Yossarian's character.

1. Do you not want to fly anymore missions?

I surely do not because I’m mentally crazy.

2. What makes you think that you’re mentally crazy?

I just want to go home and if you’re crazy, they let you go home.

3. But why do you want to go home? Don’t you want to fight for your country?

I don’t. Everyone’s trying to kill me.

4. Well, everyone’s trying to kill everyone. It is war, is it not?

Yes, but still, people are trying to kill me. They’re trying to poison me and shoot me down.

5. What do you think about the commander who raises the number of misions that you have to fly to go back home.

I think he’s a crazy lunatic who just wants to kill me.


Do you guys think it's good. Please give some comments and try to add more. I can't think of anything else.

Thank you.
Bye.

Hi.

Someone please help.

Thank you.
Bye.

[Scheherazade]

I think I would have chosen the Chaplain but it is your choice

I think he’s a crazy lunatic who just wants to kill me.

Why do you think he would like to kill you?

You come up with the answer and I will try to help you with the questions as long as I am here... Deal?

[Viridis]

Hello, all - this is my first post. Obviously it is aimed at those who have read the Joseph Heller novel.

As I stated in the topic line, this is probably the craziest interpretation of the novel. I've searched the internet to see if there was any other analysis like mine, but apparently I'm alone. Still, here it goes...

I have to present this right now as only a "what if..." commentary, as I don't feel I have enough evidence yet to really make this a strong thesis. While I was reading the novel, I was struck by the chapter in which Nately's whore tries to kill Yossarian repeatedly. The whole novel has an absurd, surreal quality to it, but this chapter seemed to go even farther. They push the woman out of a plane with a parachute in northern Italy, and in the next scene she's attacking Yossarian outside his tent on Pianosa. The impossibility of this chapter made me go back and rethink the novel, particularly Snowden.

When Snowden is fatally wounded, Dobbs seizes the controls of the plane, puts them in a dive back into the flack, and yells over the intercom "Help him! Help him!" When Yossarian asks, "Help who?" Dobbs replies, "Help the bombadier!" But Yossarian himself is the bombadier. Why did Heller add that confused shout of Dobbs? Yossarian makes his way to the back of the plane where he sees Snowden lying with a gaping wound in his thigh. Of course, the fatal wound is hidden by the flack jacket.

Now, later in the book we learn that Yossarian himself was wounded on another mission. Where was he wounded? In the upper thigh - the same area as Snowden. Hmmm. At Snowden's funeral, Yossarian is sitting naked in a tree; the chaplain sees him there but does not realize it is Yossarian. He thinks he is seeing a vision; he wonders if it is an angel, a ghost, or the dead man's soul.

Perhaps you're starting to see where I'm going with this. There are constant references to the dead man in Yossarian's tent. When Yossarian's new tent-mates at the end of the novel finally get rid of the dead man's belongings by simply throwing them out, Yossarian leaves the tent as well. When Yossarian is stabbed by Nately's whore and is rushed to the hospital, he starts to regain consciousness and smells formaldehyde - the main ingredient in embalming fluid.

Is it possible that there is a subtext to Heller's novel - a second level of meaning in which Yossarian actually is dead during much of the novel? There are some further hints of that possible reading. When Doc Daneeka officially "died" in McWatt's plane crash, he goes to have his temperature taken again by Pilchard and Wren. As always his temperature is too low (96.8), and they offer the theory that he is dead, that maybe he has been dead the entire time and they didn't realize it. Is this a hint to the reader to look at the novel this way? At another point, Orr says that Appleby has flies in his eyes, and that prevents him from seeing things as they really are. This introduces the idea that things may not be as they appear, and flies are traditionally associated with death.

This odd reading of the novel gives another meaning to the ending. Perhaps Yossarian's soul has a choice - to remain in the eternal city of man, full of vice, pain and death (see the chapter of that name, which refers literally to Rome) Orr (intentionally misspelled to make the reference to Yossarian's tent-mate) to escape to a better place, a paradise of sorts: Sweden. Just remove the "Sw" and you have a deeper meaning. Plus, we already have a reference to Eden earlier in the novel, again when Yossarian is in the tree at Snowden's funeral. When Milo climbs the tree to talk to Yossarian, he asks what kind of tree it is. Yossarian replies that it's the Tree of Life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, both of which were in the garden of Eden.

As I said, this is a lot of circumstantial evidence; I would need to reread the book and do more research to truly support it. Still, the idea intrigues me. I have a little more to say on the matter, such as the roles of Major ____ de Coverly as God and the old lecherous man in the brothel as the devil, but I'll add that when I work out the details more.

Please let me know if I'm completely crazy with this alternate reading.

P.S. This reading of the novel was influenced by the movie Jacob's Ladder, in which a soldier has to come to terms with the fact that he is actually dead.

[Geoffrey]

this had made me want to read catch-22 again, immediately.... very interesting ideas.

[PeterL]

Perhaps you're starting to see where I'm going with this. There are constant references to the dead man in Yossarian's tent. When Yossarian's new tent-mates at the end of the novel finally get rid of the dead man's belongings by simply throwing them out, Yossarian leaves the tent as well. When Yossarian is stabbed by Nately's whore and is rushed to the hospital, he starts to regain consciousness and smells formaldehyde - the main ingredient in embalming fluid.

Is it possible that there is a subtext to Heller's novel - a second level of meaning in which Yossarian actually is dead during much of the novel? There are some further hints of that possible reading. When Doc Daneeka officially "died" in McWatt's plane crash, he goes to have his temperature taken again by Pilchard and Wren. As always his temperature is too low (96.8), and they offer the theory that he is dead, that maybe he has been dead the entire time and they didn't realize it. Is this a hint to the reader to look at the novel this way? At another point, Orr says that Appleby has flies in his eyes, and that prevents him from seeing things as they really are. This introduces the idea that things may not be as they appear, and flies are traditionally associated with death.

This odd reading of the novel gives another meaning to the ending. Perhaps Yossarian's soul has a choice - to remain in the eternal city of man, full of vice, pain and death (see the chapter of that name, which refers literally to Rome) Orr (intentionally misspelled to make the reference to Yossarian's tent-mate) to escape to a better place, a paradise of sorts: Sweden. Just remove the "Sw" and you have a deeper meaning. Plus, we already have a reference to Eden earlier in the novel, again when Yossarian is in the tree at Snowden's funeral. When Milo climbs the tree to talk to Yossarian, he asks what kind of tree it is. Yossarian replies that it's the Tree of Life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, both of which were in the garden of Eden.

As I said, this is a lot of circumstantial evidence; I would need to reread the book and do more research to truly support it. Still, the idea intrigues me. I have a little more to say on the matter, such as the roles of Major ____ de Coverly as God and the old lecherous man in the brothel as the devil, but I'll add that when I work out the details more.

Please let me know if I'm completely crazy with this alternate reading.

There certainly is meaning other than the literal. The novel is about absurdity of life in an absurd place/situation. There is question at many points as to who is alive and who is dead and what the difference is. I wouldn't identify anyone as god or the devil; everyone seems to be in between the extremes. It's been a couple of years since I read Catch 22, but, as i recall ir, most chapters are largely disconnected from the rest of the book, and some chapters are pure fantasy, while other chapters recount events. The sequence with the whore is mostly a dream sequence, I think.

Whether you are completely crazy and whether your reading is absurd are two completely different questions.

[Jantex]

Well, that is really a very interesting point of view

Now, I`m wondering why the author chose to do that and what it is supposed to mean.

(Also, he might not mean that, but as we/you can find evidence...it is a fact )

[Ella]

Wow, Viridis. I never thought Yossarian & the others as being 'dead' before. Snowden's death forces Yossarian to think beyond his corporeal 'existence', mortality to find his essence, his soul. Rome, the center of Western religious beliefs is illustrated as godless where the absurd is normal, a blatant reference to Dante's Inferno. I don't want to say he's in purgatory but he must decide where he wants to go. He decides to ensure both his physical & spiritual existence by heading to Sweden/eden but we know that he won't get there. "The spirit gone, man is garbage," I hope this excerpt helps explain my ideas.

But I'm interested in exploring the scene of the tree of knowledge more. Back to Genesis.

[ennison]

Catch-22 is a brilliant novel and your reading of it is very interesting. With such a fertile and powerful imagination working at full power Heller may have had several ideas coming together which he himself perhaps had not followed through to synthesise but which the reader may be able to do by disentangling the possibilities of interpretation. Creativity is both conscious and unconscious. As Coleridge tried to point out a long time ago.

[Silo]

I'm currently 100 pages into the book, and despite some confusion with exactly who's who, I find Catch-22 quite funny and generally enjoyable. I'd really, however, love to understand the novel more deeply and there are several things that I am questioning...

1) Is the letter writing symbolic? As in when Yossarian and Major Major Major use Washington Irving/John Milton to sign, often using this letter-signing as a way to pass time? Could it be a hint that war somehow makes you loose your identity?

2) What is the meaning of all the absurdity of the actions/sayings?

These questions, I realize may sound infantile, but I'm working on improving my reading/writing skills so please bear with me! =)

[tudwell]

I'm not so sure about the letters, I just took them for what they were. But the absurd humor is meant to be a reflection of the absurdity of war, which is what the whole book is really about. It's good stuff, and if you've enjoyed it so far I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest (although it tends to get a bit redundant).

[Bii]

Catch 22 messed with my head, and I had to stop reading before the men in white coats turned up. What I gleaned from when I was reading it was that it was a very effective way of showing what being in a war does to your mind; the confusion, the circular events, the desperation. War makes you crazy - that was the message I received all too clearly! Enjoy, and good luck!

[Yendor]

I'm a hugh fan of Joseph Heller, and my favorite title is Catch 22. I cherish my Franklin Library copy of Catch 22.

[metal134]

this had made me want to read catch-22 again, immediately.... very interesting ideas.

Ditto. Very interesting theory!