Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Catch 22
Xavier Williams
AP Lang 5th
Van de Motter A
26 February 2013
The Absurdity of War Seen through Catch-22 Literally and figuratively speaking, Catch-22 is a four hundred and sixty two paged mental exercise. It is ridden with paradoxes, a fragmented storyline, imperfect characters, and oddly-timed comedy, all of which Joseph Heller adroitly uses to illustrate a point. Drawing on his service in the United States Air force during World War Two, Joseph Heller utilizes Catch-22 to convey his anti-war message. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1923, Joseph Heller experienced death early in his life when his father died of a failed operation, which would manifest itself in Heller’s darker writing style. With his mother’s help, he was able to graduate …show more content…
from high school in 1941, and went on to fly sixty combat missions as a B-25 Bomber with the 488th Bombardment Squadron of the 340th Bomb Group in the 12th Air Force during World War Two. He formed a negative opinion of war, which he would carry for the rest of his life, due to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After he was relieved from duty, he aspired to higher education at the University of South Carolina, New York University, and Oxford, using his knowledge of writing and experiences from the war to craft his bestselling novel Catch-22. Shortly after Catch-22’s release in 1961, it became critically acclaimed by readers nationwide and later worldwide.
It especially caught on because of the Vietnam War which was happening at the time. Some characters’ actions were harshly criticized and its anti-war message was negatively received because of America’s involvement in the war at the time (Merrill). However, critics applauded its humor in relation to its horror. Regardless of reception the word Catch-22 was added to the English Language in the same year Catch-22 was released, meaning a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or …show more content…
conditions. Catch-22 mainly follows John Yossarian’s experiences and recounts through an omniscient perspective, often exploring other loosely related characters’ experiences and recollections. At the core, Yossarian is a slightly modified version of Heller’s life during the war; Yossarian is a bombardier in the 27th squadron in the United States Air force during World War Two, though the two’s lives diverge. Yossarian becomes deeply concerned with his own safety and quests diligently to be sent home, though he cannot escape because of the paradox of Catch-22. Ultimately, he realizes there is no paradox flees the dangerous machine of the military by desertion. Heller expresses the absurdity of war partly by satirizing the image of the stereotypical soldier. He deserts the typical portrayal of soldiers as people of upstanding character and morals by giving each their own dramatic affliction, coupled with assigning each character his own chapter as to develop them in such a way that the reader views them as absurd. For example, Colonel Cathcart aspires to impress his superiors by raising the number of required combat missions, though he endangers his soldiers in the process. His endless ambition causes one of the main conflicts in the novel because “‘men in other groups are being sent home with fifty and fifty-five [missions]’” while his quota well above sixty, and he wasn’t going to stop raising it anytime soon (Heller 397). “He ought to increase the number at once to seventy, eighty, a hundred, or even two hundred, three hundred, or six thousand!” (Heller 219). Hungry Joe, one of Yossarian’s fellow soldiers, dutifully fulfills his combat mission quota. However, he screams in his sleep if he doesn’t have a mission the next day. Nately encourages prostitution; Orr fails his missions purposefully; Lieutenant Sceisskopf (German for poop-head) is engrossed with parades; Chief White Halfoat died of pneumonia simply because he wanted to die of pneumonia. Dunbar is lethargic; his maxim being “live forever or die in the attempt” (Heller 30). Each character is identified by their personal calamity (Gussow). The characters in Catch-22 can logically be placed into three separate groups: Victims, Exploiters, and Survivors, according to Robert Merrill. The victims are all of Coronel Cathcart’s subordinates; they are subject to his endlessly rising quota and as a result, are murdered in bizarre and tragic ways. Kid Sampson, for example, was sliced in half by the propeller of McWatt’s plane. McWatt subsequently committed suicide by flying into a mountain. Hungry Joe died of asphyxiation in his sleep. The Exploiters were characters like Cathcart, who raised the mission quota for his own benefit, and Milo Minderbinder, who gained a profit at everyone else’s detriment. As Robert Young wrote, “He is the exemplar of logic amorality” (Young). The Exploiters live in a world of greed and avarice. This can be seen through Milo’s flagrant disregard for human life through his willingness to feed the squadron indigestible chocolate covered cotton (Brunstein). The final group, the Survivors, included only Orr and Yossarian, who each escaped oppression from their superiors (Mullican). Most are the characters are subject to Catch-22, the paradox is prevalent throughout the book.
The most significant instance of Catch-22 involves Yossarian trying to avoid more combat missions. “The only way to avoid more missions is to go crazy, but if a soldier is truly crazy, he would not ask to stop going on more missions” (Heller 56). The mere act of asking to stop implies sanity, so the soldier must keep going on missions. Cathcart uses this circular reasoning to trap his subordinates into never leaving the war, which is why many of the men get killed, and why Yossarian chose to desert. The aforementioned Catch-22 is compounded with another: “You’ve got to always do what your commanding officer tells you.” (Heller 105). The soldiers cannot flee not only because they are not crazy, but because their officers commanded that they cannot. The soldiers, the Chaplain, and Major Major Major especially take abuse because they can’t stop it, another Catch-22 (Heller
255). Along with satirizing the characters, Heller also satirizes the bureaucracy that the characters operate in. Officials often abused their power for their own advancement. Corporal Whitcomb reported, out of spite, to his superiors that his associate the Chaplain forged Washington Irving’s name onto official documents. The reader knows he is innocent and takes pity on him when he consequentially is interrogated. His questioners, taking advantage of his timorousness, threatened to have access to an endless pool of witnesses who would claim that he had forged Washington Irving’s name. The entire investigation is an example of bureaucracy’s ludicrousness. The squadron went through a useless investigation that was a repercussion of Major Major’s boredom. The bureaucratic higher-ups brought in two independent investigators, which only worsened the problem, as the members of the squadron misled them both to think the other was the culprit. In the hospital, a highly trained Doctor diagnoses a patient with meningitis simply because he’s a “meningitis man” (Heller 183).
Near the end of the novel, Coronels Cathcart and Korn, two bureaucrats, attempt to manipulate Yossarian by promising his freedom just because he resisted, which he rejects because of its unfairness to the other soldiers. When McWatt commits suicide, Doc Daneeka was also thought to be in the plane, so he was assumed dead when in reality he was never in the plane. He tries to tell people that he’s alive, but no one will listen. His wife, growing complacent with financial benefits because of his death, ignored his pleas that he was alive. “Mrs. Daneeka moved with ner children to Lansing, Michigan, and left no forwarding address” (Heller 354). If the high-ranking officers thought him dead, then he must be dead. Heller illustrates the idiosyncrasy of bureaucracy through the nonsensical actions of military bureaucrats. Tapping into his gruesome memories during the war and his father’s death, Joseph Heller employs Black Humor ubiquitously in his writing. Black Humor is a specific wing of humor in which “comedy is finally neutralized by the weightier force of terror and death” (Aldridge). Heller utilizes black humor in several ways throughout Catch-22. He makes all the characters cartoon-like and very flat; their characters never vary throughout the plot (Dickstein). The story itself is an instance of humor – it’s segmented and hard to understand largely because of its non-chronological style of exposition. For example, a character that dies in one chapter will have a conversation with Yossarian in the next chapter, making death appear jovial and insignificant. Another example of black humor is Heller’s use of the stark juxtaposition of sentences and ideas; chapter thirty epitomizes this (Kennard). While Yossarian and his friends are enjoying themselves at the beach, Nurse Cramer sits on the beach like them, and cherishes the ocean as they do, but from ten yards away. “[W]hen they dived, she dived; when they laughed and splashed, she laughed and splashed” (Heller 346). Their merriment is abruptly interrupted when McWatt’s plane appears from the trees and massacres Kid Sampson by severing him in half with the plane’s propellers. Another occurrence of darkly humorous juxtaposition, the most significant to Yossarian, is Aarfy’s playfulness and Snowden’s tragically gory death. Joseph Heller portrays war and its processes humorously in order to show its absurdity. Heller makes the structure of Catch-22 disjointed as an extension of his humorous delineation of war, which has received much controversy. Because Catch-22’s story is told through loosely related chronicles and flashbacks that happen randomly and repeatedly, critics argue that it has no form, when the novel was structured in segments for a purpose. Events are recounted more than once in order to allow the reader to reevaluate what he or she reads. (Merrill). An incident may be recounted, and each additional time it is reviewed, some aspect has varied; its tone is different, or more details are given. This is evident with Snowden’s death. At first, the reader only knows that Snowden was killed, but it is not until the third time the reader sees the event that he or she knows the exact details of his death. This can also be seen with the soldier in white’s triple appearance throughout the story. The first two comically detail the soldier’s existence and his transition into death. His third appearance, though, involves humor. Dunbar creates mass panic and is “disappeared” for the rest of the plot (Heller 361). Employing his negative experiences during World War Two as a springboard, Joseph Heller strips all seriousness from war through the actions and reactions of characters in Catch-22 through its humorous description. Officers like Coronel Cathcart skew the seriousness of war by needlessly perpetuating conflict, and no one stops him because of the paradox that is Catch-22. Though Yossarian is criticized for becoming selfish through his aversion to combat, he becomes a conduit of Heller’s beliefs as he realizes the importance of human life and morals, which Heller wants the reader to understand. Catch-22 is the canvas with which Joseph Heller leaves his beliefs and legacy.
Works Cited
Aldridge, John W. "THE LOONY HORROR OF IT ALL- 'CATCH-22 ' TURNS 25." The New York Times [New York City] 26 Oct. 1986, Final ed., sec. 7: n. pag. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Brunstein, Robert. "Catch-22." Powells. The News Republic Online, 31 May 2001. Web. 07 Feb. 2013. <http://www.powells.com/review/2001_05_31.html?printer=1/>.
Dickstein, Morris. "Black Humor and History: The Early Sixties." Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (1977). Penguin Books, 1989. 91-127. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New Dell. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961. Print.
Kennard, Jean E. "Joseph Heller: At War with Absurdity." MOSAIC 4.3 (Spring 1971): 75- 87. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Mullican, James S. "A Burkean Approach to 'Catch-22 '." College Literature 8.1 (Winter 1981): 42-52. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 63. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Robert Merrill, The Structure and Meaning of Catch-22, in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 2, Autumn, 1986
Young, Robert M., and Ian Pitchford. "DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22." DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22. The Human Nature Review, 28 May 2005. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.human-nature.com>.
Bibliography
Aldridge, John W. "THE LOONY HORROR OF IT ALL- 'CATCH-22 ' TURNS 25." The New York Times [New York City] 26 Oct. 1986, Final ed., sec. 7: n. pag. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Allbery, Russ. "Catch-22." Reviews. The Eyrie, 6 Aug. 2006. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <<http://www.eyrie.org>.
Augustyn, Adam. American Literature From 1945 Through Today. 1st ed. New York City: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2011. 22-23. Print.
Brunstein, Robert. "Catch-22." Powells. The News Republic Online, 31 May 2001. Web. 07 Feb. 2013. <http://www.powells.com/review/2001_05_31.html?printer=1/>.
Dickstein, Morris. "Black Humor and History: The Early Sixties." Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (1977). Penguin Books, 1989. 91-127. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://go.galegroup.com>.
Gussow, Mel. "Critic 's Notebook; Questioning the Provenance of the Iconic 'Catch-22 '" The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Apr. 1998. Web. 08 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New Dell. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961. Print.
"Joseph Heller." Contemporary Popular Writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <<http://ic.galegroup.com>>.
Kennard, Jean E. "Joseph Heller: At War with Absurdity." MOSAIC 4.3 (Spring 1971): 75- 87. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Mullican, James S. "A Burkean Approach to 'Catch-22 '." College Literature 8.1 (Winter 1981): 42-52. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 63. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Najarian, Jennifer. "Heller, Joseph." Heller, Joseph. The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Spring 2005. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/>.
Neary, Lynn. " 'Catch-22 ': A Paradox Turns 50 And Still Rings True." NPR. NPR, 13 Oct. 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.npr.org/>.
Podhoretz, Norman. "Looking Back at 'Catch-22 '." Commentary 109.2 (2000): 32. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Robert Merrill, The Structure and Meaning of Catch-22, in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 2, Autumn, 1986
Swift, Daniel. "A story with no end: Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 was first published half a c entury ago. Written about one war at the start of another, it still has much to tell us about the absurdity of modern conflict." New Statesman [1996] 4 July 2011: 41+. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://ic.galegroup.com>
Young, Robert M., and Ian Pitchford. "DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22." DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22. The Human Nature Review, 28 May 2005. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.human-nature.com>.
AP Lang 5th
Van de Motter A
26 February 2013
The Absurdity of War Seen through Catch-22 Literally and figuratively speaking, Catch-22 is a four hundred and sixty two paged mental exercise. It is ridden with paradoxes, a fragmented storyline, imperfect characters, and oddly-timed comedy, all of which Joseph Heller adroitly uses to illustrate a point. Drawing on his service in the United States Air force during World War Two, Joseph Heller utilizes Catch-22 to convey his anti-war message. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1923, Joseph Heller experienced death early in his life when his father died of a failed operation, which would manifest itself in Heller’s darker writing style. With his mother’s help, he was able to graduate …show more content…
from high school in 1941, and went on to fly sixty combat missions as a B-25 Bomber with the 488th Bombardment Squadron of the 340th Bomb Group in the 12th Air Force during World War Two. He formed a negative opinion of war, which he would carry for the rest of his life, due to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After he was relieved from duty, he aspired to higher education at the University of South Carolina, New York University, and Oxford, using his knowledge of writing and experiences from the war to craft his bestselling novel Catch-22. Shortly after Catch-22’s release in 1961, it became critically acclaimed by readers nationwide and later worldwide.
It especially caught on because of the Vietnam War which was happening at the time. Some characters’ actions were harshly criticized and its anti-war message was negatively received because of America’s involvement in the war at the time (Merrill). However, critics applauded its humor in relation to its horror. Regardless of reception the word Catch-22 was added to the English Language in the same year Catch-22 was released, meaning a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or …show more content…
conditions. Catch-22 mainly follows John Yossarian’s experiences and recounts through an omniscient perspective, often exploring other loosely related characters’ experiences and recollections. At the core, Yossarian is a slightly modified version of Heller’s life during the war; Yossarian is a bombardier in the 27th squadron in the United States Air force during World War Two, though the two’s lives diverge. Yossarian becomes deeply concerned with his own safety and quests diligently to be sent home, though he cannot escape because of the paradox of Catch-22. Ultimately, he realizes there is no paradox flees the dangerous machine of the military by desertion. Heller expresses the absurdity of war partly by satirizing the image of the stereotypical soldier. He deserts the typical portrayal of soldiers as people of upstanding character and morals by giving each their own dramatic affliction, coupled with assigning each character his own chapter as to develop them in such a way that the reader views them as absurd. For example, Colonel Cathcart aspires to impress his superiors by raising the number of required combat missions, though he endangers his soldiers in the process. His endless ambition causes one of the main conflicts in the novel because “‘men in other groups are being sent home with fifty and fifty-five [missions]’” while his quota well above sixty, and he wasn’t going to stop raising it anytime soon (Heller 397). “He ought to increase the number at once to seventy, eighty, a hundred, or even two hundred, three hundred, or six thousand!” (Heller 219). Hungry Joe, one of Yossarian’s fellow soldiers, dutifully fulfills his combat mission quota. However, he screams in his sleep if he doesn’t have a mission the next day. Nately encourages prostitution; Orr fails his missions purposefully; Lieutenant Sceisskopf (German for poop-head) is engrossed with parades; Chief White Halfoat died of pneumonia simply because he wanted to die of pneumonia. Dunbar is lethargic; his maxim being “live forever or die in the attempt” (Heller 30). Each character is identified by their personal calamity (Gussow). The characters in Catch-22 can logically be placed into three separate groups: Victims, Exploiters, and Survivors, according to Robert Merrill. The victims are all of Coronel Cathcart’s subordinates; they are subject to his endlessly rising quota and as a result, are murdered in bizarre and tragic ways. Kid Sampson, for example, was sliced in half by the propeller of McWatt’s plane. McWatt subsequently committed suicide by flying into a mountain. Hungry Joe died of asphyxiation in his sleep. The Exploiters were characters like Cathcart, who raised the mission quota for his own benefit, and Milo Minderbinder, who gained a profit at everyone else’s detriment. As Robert Young wrote, “He is the exemplar of logic amorality” (Young). The Exploiters live in a world of greed and avarice. This can be seen through Milo’s flagrant disregard for human life through his willingness to feed the squadron indigestible chocolate covered cotton (Brunstein). The final group, the Survivors, included only Orr and Yossarian, who each escaped oppression from their superiors (Mullican). Most are the characters are subject to Catch-22, the paradox is prevalent throughout the book.
The most significant instance of Catch-22 involves Yossarian trying to avoid more combat missions. “The only way to avoid more missions is to go crazy, but if a soldier is truly crazy, he would not ask to stop going on more missions” (Heller 56). The mere act of asking to stop implies sanity, so the soldier must keep going on missions. Cathcart uses this circular reasoning to trap his subordinates into never leaving the war, which is why many of the men get killed, and why Yossarian chose to desert. The aforementioned Catch-22 is compounded with another: “You’ve got to always do what your commanding officer tells you.” (Heller 105). The soldiers cannot flee not only because they are not crazy, but because their officers commanded that they cannot. The soldiers, the Chaplain, and Major Major Major especially take abuse because they can’t stop it, another Catch-22 (Heller
255). Along with satirizing the characters, Heller also satirizes the bureaucracy that the characters operate in. Officials often abused their power for their own advancement. Corporal Whitcomb reported, out of spite, to his superiors that his associate the Chaplain forged Washington Irving’s name onto official documents. The reader knows he is innocent and takes pity on him when he consequentially is interrogated. His questioners, taking advantage of his timorousness, threatened to have access to an endless pool of witnesses who would claim that he had forged Washington Irving’s name. The entire investigation is an example of bureaucracy’s ludicrousness. The squadron went through a useless investigation that was a repercussion of Major Major’s boredom. The bureaucratic higher-ups brought in two independent investigators, which only worsened the problem, as the members of the squadron misled them both to think the other was the culprit. In the hospital, a highly trained Doctor diagnoses a patient with meningitis simply because he’s a “meningitis man” (Heller 183).
Near the end of the novel, Coronels Cathcart and Korn, two bureaucrats, attempt to manipulate Yossarian by promising his freedom just because he resisted, which he rejects because of its unfairness to the other soldiers. When McWatt commits suicide, Doc Daneeka was also thought to be in the plane, so he was assumed dead when in reality he was never in the plane. He tries to tell people that he’s alive, but no one will listen. His wife, growing complacent with financial benefits because of his death, ignored his pleas that he was alive. “Mrs. Daneeka moved with ner children to Lansing, Michigan, and left no forwarding address” (Heller 354). If the high-ranking officers thought him dead, then he must be dead. Heller illustrates the idiosyncrasy of bureaucracy through the nonsensical actions of military bureaucrats. Tapping into his gruesome memories during the war and his father’s death, Joseph Heller employs Black Humor ubiquitously in his writing. Black Humor is a specific wing of humor in which “comedy is finally neutralized by the weightier force of terror and death” (Aldridge). Heller utilizes black humor in several ways throughout Catch-22. He makes all the characters cartoon-like and very flat; their characters never vary throughout the plot (Dickstein). The story itself is an instance of humor – it’s segmented and hard to understand largely because of its non-chronological style of exposition. For example, a character that dies in one chapter will have a conversation with Yossarian in the next chapter, making death appear jovial and insignificant. Another example of black humor is Heller’s use of the stark juxtaposition of sentences and ideas; chapter thirty epitomizes this (Kennard). While Yossarian and his friends are enjoying themselves at the beach, Nurse Cramer sits on the beach like them, and cherishes the ocean as they do, but from ten yards away. “[W]hen they dived, she dived; when they laughed and splashed, she laughed and splashed” (Heller 346). Their merriment is abruptly interrupted when McWatt’s plane appears from the trees and massacres Kid Sampson by severing him in half with the plane’s propellers. Another occurrence of darkly humorous juxtaposition, the most significant to Yossarian, is Aarfy’s playfulness and Snowden’s tragically gory death. Joseph Heller portrays war and its processes humorously in order to show its absurdity. Heller makes the structure of Catch-22 disjointed as an extension of his humorous delineation of war, which has received much controversy. Because Catch-22’s story is told through loosely related chronicles and flashbacks that happen randomly and repeatedly, critics argue that it has no form, when the novel was structured in segments for a purpose. Events are recounted more than once in order to allow the reader to reevaluate what he or she reads. (Merrill). An incident may be recounted, and each additional time it is reviewed, some aspect has varied; its tone is different, or more details are given. This is evident with Snowden’s death. At first, the reader only knows that Snowden was killed, but it is not until the third time the reader sees the event that he or she knows the exact details of his death. This can also be seen with the soldier in white’s triple appearance throughout the story. The first two comically detail the soldier’s existence and his transition into death. His third appearance, though, involves humor. Dunbar creates mass panic and is “disappeared” for the rest of the plot (Heller 361). Employing his negative experiences during World War Two as a springboard, Joseph Heller strips all seriousness from war through the actions and reactions of characters in Catch-22 through its humorous description. Officers like Coronel Cathcart skew the seriousness of war by needlessly perpetuating conflict, and no one stops him because of the paradox that is Catch-22. Though Yossarian is criticized for becoming selfish through his aversion to combat, he becomes a conduit of Heller’s beliefs as he realizes the importance of human life and morals, which Heller wants the reader to understand. Catch-22 is the canvas with which Joseph Heller leaves his beliefs and legacy.
Works Cited
Aldridge, John W. "THE LOONY HORROR OF IT ALL- 'CATCH-22 ' TURNS 25." The New York Times [New York City] 26 Oct. 1986, Final ed., sec. 7: n. pag. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Brunstein, Robert. "Catch-22." Powells. The News Republic Online, 31 May 2001. Web. 07 Feb. 2013. <http://www.powells.com/review/2001_05_31.html?printer=1/>.
Dickstein, Morris. "Black Humor and History: The Early Sixties." Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (1977). Penguin Books, 1989. 91-127. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New Dell. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961. Print.
Kennard, Jean E. "Joseph Heller: At War with Absurdity." MOSAIC 4.3 (Spring 1971): 75- 87. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Mullican, James S. "A Burkean Approach to 'Catch-22 '." College Literature 8.1 (Winter 1981): 42-52. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 63. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Robert Merrill, The Structure and Meaning of Catch-22, in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 2, Autumn, 1986
Young, Robert M., and Ian Pitchford. "DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22." DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22. The Human Nature Review, 28 May 2005. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.human-nature.com>.
Bibliography
Aldridge, John W. "THE LOONY HORROR OF IT ALL- 'CATCH-22 ' TURNS 25." The New York Times [New York City] 26 Oct. 1986, Final ed., sec. 7: n. pag. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Allbery, Russ. "Catch-22." Reviews. The Eyrie, 6 Aug. 2006. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <<http://www.eyrie.org>.
Augustyn, Adam. American Literature From 1945 Through Today. 1st ed. New York City: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2011. 22-23. Print.
Brunstein, Robert. "Catch-22." Powells. The News Republic Online, 31 May 2001. Web. 07 Feb. 2013. <http://www.powells.com/review/2001_05_31.html?printer=1/>.
Dickstein, Morris. "Black Humor and History: The Early Sixties." Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (1977). Penguin Books, 1989. 91-127. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://go.galegroup.com>.
Gussow, Mel. "Critic 's Notebook; Questioning the Provenance of the Iconic 'Catch-22 '" The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Apr. 1998. Web. 08 Feb. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com>.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New Dell. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961. Print.
"Joseph Heller." Contemporary Popular Writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. <<http://ic.galegroup.com>>.
Kennard, Jean E. "Joseph Heller: At War with Absurdity." MOSAIC 4.3 (Spring 1971): 75- 87. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Mullican, James S. "A Burkean Approach to 'Catch-22 '." College Literature 8.1 (Winter 1981): 42-52. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Roger Matuz and Cathy Falk. Vol. 63. Detroit: Gale Research, 1991. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Najarian, Jennifer. "Heller, Joseph." Heller, Joseph. The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Spring 2005. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/>.
Neary, Lynn. " 'Catch-22 ': A Paradox Turns 50 And Still Rings True." NPR. NPR, 13 Oct. 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.npr.org/>.
Podhoretz, Norman. "Looking Back at 'Catch-22 '." Commentary 109.2 (2000): 32. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Robert Merrill, The Structure and Meaning of Catch-22, in Studies in American Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 2, Autumn, 1986
Swift, Daniel. "A story with no end: Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 was first published half a c entury ago. Written about one war at the start of another, it still has much to tell us about the absurdity of modern conflict." New Statesman [1996] 4 July 2011: 41+. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 12 Feb. 2013. <http://ic.galegroup.com>
Young, Robert M., and Ian Pitchford. "DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22." DEADLY UNCONSCIOUS LOGICS IN JOSEPH HELLERÂS CATCH-22. The Human Nature Review, 28 May 2005. Web. 05 Feb. 2013. <http://www.human-nature.com>.