LITERATURE ANALYSIS #1

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

1. Catch-22 is different than most books by how it doesn't have much of a main plot. The story is mostly fragmented thoughts or stories from different characters in the book. Most of the story is about a group of bombardiers who are fighting in the second world war. The exposition is the time Yossarian and his crew are in the hospital pretending to be hurt because they don't want to go back to the war. The inciting incident would be when the Texan drives everyone out of the hospital because of how annoying he is and they all go back to fighting in the war. The rising action is when Yossarian and his crew are completing all of the missions required to be discharged from duty, but the amount of missions keeps rising throughout the story. The climax occurs when one of Yossarian's close comrades dies on a mission which take a big mental toll on him. The falling action/resolution is the end when Yossarian leaves the air force and lives his life away from the war. The narrative fulfills the authors purpose of a satire on the war crazed people who are so dedicated to the war, that they are blind to the damage they are doing.
2. The theme of the novel is honor and dignity. The definition behind Catch-22 is what embodies this theme, and the whole book leaks the message of the theme through the anecdotes in hte story.
3. The author's tone is a bit laid back and relaxed. He is pokes fun at some characters and sometimes narrates something incorrectly through a character's thoughts for comedy.

• "'One hand washes the other. Know what I mean? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' Yossarian knew what he meant. 'That's not what I meant,' Doc Daneeka said, as Yossarian began scratching his back."
• "Yossarian and Dunbar were busy in a far corner pawing orgiastically at four or five frolicsome girls and six bottles of red wine, and Hungry Joe had long since tramped away down one of the mystic hallways, propelling before him like a ravening despot as many of the broadest-hipped young prostitutes as he could contain in his frail wind-milling arms and cram into one double bed."
• "Late that night Hungry Joe dreamed that Huple's cat was sleeping on his face, suffocating him, and when he woke up, Huple's cat was sleeping on his face."

1. Paradox:"Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to." -p.33
2. Repartee: "'Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?' 'Every one of them,' Yossarian told him. 'Every one of whom?' 'Every one of whom do you think?' 'I haven't any idea.' 'Then how do you know they aren't?'" p.10
3. Synethesia: "There was nothing funny about living like a bum in a tent in Pianosa between fat mountains behind him and a placid blue sea in front that could gulp down a person with a cramp in the twinkling of an eye and ship him back to shore three days later, all charges paid, bloated, blue and putrescent, water draining out through both cold nostrils. p.10
4. Situational Irony: " Clevinger was a genius... a Harvard undergraduate... [going] far in the academic world... In short, he was a dope" p. 68
5. Personification: "They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.” p.126
6.  Dramatic Irony: "Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn't quite jaundice" p. 7
7. Imagery: "An intense heat flashed through the area. Even in Yossarian's ward, almost three hundred feet away, they could hear the roar of the blaze and the sharp cracks of flaming timber. Smoke sped past the orange-tinted windows."
8. Foreshadowing: "Do you remember... that time in Rome when that girl who can't stand you kept hitting me over and over the head with the heel of her shoe? Do you want to know why she was hitting me?" p. 25
9. Alliteration: "If the colonel says we have to fly fifty-five missions, we have to fly them." p. 65
10. Verbal Irony: "I don't have nightmares" p. 54

Characterization

1. Heller characterizes Yossarian and Dunbar indirectly because they are two main characters in the story and he wants the readers to interpret the character based on their actions since they will be doing most if the actions during the story. The warrant officer and the Texan was characterized directly because they are minor characters so the author doesn't want to waste time describing their actions when he could just say what their characteristics are like. Also, the Texan and warrant officer are described a bit from the perspective of the main characters which get their impression of the characters easily.
2. The author is pretty much consistent when describing a character and an event. Many times in the story, especially during dialogue, a certain word or subject will come up and that word or phrase will be repeated several times over. Heller uses imagery to describe characters usually. Example: "She was a tall, strapping girl with long hair and incandescent blue veins converging populously beneath her cocoa-colored skin where the flesh was most tender, and she kept cursing and shrieking and jumping high up into the air on her bare feet to keep right on hitting him on the top of his head with the spiked heel of her shoe."
3. The main character is a dynamic/round character. This is shown in the beginning of the story when Yossarian wanted to stay in the hospital to avoid risking his life in battle. By the end of the story, when he is given the offer to leave the air force on honorable discharge at the expense of others having to complete more missions, he decides to pass up on the offer to save the lives of the innocent. (Even though he escapes the air force in the end.)
4. I felt like I have met a new person because Yossarian has so many qualities that i can relate to or see in friends that I have. An example of the behaviors he shares with my friends would be:

"'One in each cheek,' Orr said. 

'Why?'

Orr pounced. 'Why what?'

Yossarian shook his head, smiling, and refused to say.

'It's a funny thing about this valve,' Orr mused aloud.

'What is?' Yossarian asked.

'Because I wanted -'

Yossarian knew. 'Jesus Christ! Why did you want -'

'- apple cheeks.'

'- apple cheeks?' Yossarian demanded."

The way Yossarian reacts to this kind of conversation is something I see myself in and many of my friends.