The Self-Contained Hell That Is War

The Self-Contained Hell That Is War

Laughing in the face of war and death, literally, is one of the things that make the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller such an intriguing and original story. It was written in 1961, a time when, due to the fighting of the Second World War, all war novels were written with a dark and dreary tone, while still trying to continue the pre-conceived romantic notions about war. However, Joseph Heller strips away all of the romantic pretense, and pulling heavily on his own Air Force experience during WWII, presents war in its most raw, un-censored version. It takes away thoughts of being the amazing hero, and winning medals, and replaces them with the screwed up, bureaucratic way that we fight wars. It shows the true paradoxes that arise, and shows the violence of war, in its most un-adulterated form. This book came right after WWII, a war that most American citizens saw as a just and needed war, and shocked all who read it with the truth about war. Then, as if to prove the literary genius of the author, the Vietnam War comes along. It then turns out that the novel Catch-22 was almost prophetic about the war. Almost the entire novel is shown through the eyes of the main character, Captain John Yossarian. He is an Assyrian, who is completely paranoid and always trying to convince people that there are other people out there who are doing their best to make sure he doesn’t return from each mission he flies. He then decides to make it his personal mission to return alive from every flight. Throughout the entire story, the main theme or subject is the craziness of war, and how it is not romantic as it has been previously portrayed, but actually hellish and dangerous.

One of the most interesting parts about the novel is the way in which it is organized. The book has 42 chapters, each consisting of about 8 to 10 pages, and each telling a different story. While that alone, obviously, does not make the novel unique, the fact that the stories come in no particular order does. They do not appear to even be linked at times, yet in the end, through his masterful command of the English language, he manages to make all of the non-sense, and non-sequential stories come together to create one large picture. Each of these short stories has either their own lesson, or in some cases, its own conflict, rising action, resolution, and falling action. But even with this, they all are nothing more than a small piece of the puzzle that is the novel Catch-22. The book’s structure almost resembles what could be called a shotgun effect. There are many different little stories, or pellets, that all help add up to the central story, or the main grouping. Some of the stories intersect, and many of them pull up on experiences that occurred in other chapters. Other than paying attention to what past experiences are brought up and when, the novel still works hard to make sure that by the end of each chapter, even if the reader doesn’t understand it, the reader knows in which time period it happened, and where it fits in the timeline. The most common way that it accomplishes this is by bringing up the number of missions that they are now required to fly before they could be sent home. So even the fact that the 42 different stories occur in no particular order, and very often they don’t even seem to make sense at the time the reader first reads them. It doesn’t make the novel confusing, because the ending ties them together so beautifully, and the reader can always figure out where they occur in the timeline. This entire structure makes the novel a very original read, and very greatly adds to the idea that war is not beauty and honor, but horrible violence and craziness.

The next discussion point about how the writer conveys this idea about the craziness of war is his writing style. Throughout the book the author very carefully adjusts his sentence structure and diction to reflect the mood or character of the current section of the novel. Throughout the more exciting parts of the novel the author changes to shorter, more exciting words and sentences. When the story was being told about someone of obvious intelligence, the words would get longer, more educated, and the same rings true for people who were obviously not as learned about the English language. The sentences would become short, using layman’s terms, and making it obvious that they were not formally educated. This ability of Joseph Heller to switch between sentence structure and diction shows his unbelievable command of the English language. This fact is one of the things that make it possible for the reader of this book to be able to better understand what the author is trying to convey. It makes it easier to discern what mood any given section is written in, and actually adds a small amount of simplicity to a novel that is