Life is a chance, and the novel CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller shows over and over again just how much of a dice roll it is. "The world has no meaning but is simply there; man is a ... military but can leave if, and only if, he is considered crazy and asks to leave. (This is the rule of the military.) However, there is a catch, a "catch-22,"" which is that any man who asks to leave is clearly not crazy. Ironic situations such as this fill the novel, bringing it to surreal levels of comedy ... of the novel. Masters adds that: Few would argue that Catch-22 realistically depicts World War II or the ti...

• Word Count: 2168
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School

... Bureaucracy In his novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller captures the hypocrisy of freedom in the army. All aspects of the lives and deaths of the men in Yossarian's squadron are controlled by the bureaucracy, which refuses to listen to the men that it controls. When Scheisskopf is interrogating Clevinger, ... missions, Colonel Cathcart, a bureaucrat, raises the number just because he has the authority to do so. The main characteristic of a bureaucrat in Catch-22 is the ability to defy logic. Doc Daneeka best represents this ability when he refuses to ground Yossarian for insanity, since Yossari...

• Word Count: 299
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a situation that is well beyond difficult, and totally impossible to escape from." (Beatty, p. 211) These situations are examined and brought to our attention in Joseph Heller's novel, Catch-22. The main character, Yossarian, does not want to fly but is met with a "catch 22", which can be seen as a stumbling block to reason and even free will. In the end, Yossarian takes a stand against his situation ... resist it, he becomes perceivable as insane, incapable of adapting to the shared and moral norms of everyone else. In Catch 22 , Heller portrays a situation where a military bureaucracy...

• Word Count: 1784
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School