The reason why joseph heller wrote Catch-22 is symbolic. This is because in joseph heller's Catch-22, people pay attention to exploring major social themes, revealing that in modern society, people are dissident forces that have been devastated and tortured. At the same time, his creative methods often start from surrealism rather than realism, and often use exaggerated methods to comic life, showing a reality completely different from reality; He is also good at writing jokes about outrageous atrocities and unbearable pain, but the tone of his works is rather desperate, rejecting any bright and happy ending with dramatic significance. He was angry when he showed the real world, but he eased the pain with a sarcastic attitude and accepted it helplessly. Don't want to change the world
The following is a brief introduction to Catch-22:
During World War II, an American flying group was stationed on the Mediterranean island of Pianozza. This is a strange "world". Colonel Cascade, commander of the brigade, is bent on becoming a general. In order to achieve his goal, he tried his best to win the favor of his boss. He increased the bombing missions of his subordinates again and again without authorization, with the intention of exchanging his life for promotion. There are two "outstanding" figures in this army. One is a serious and ambitious second lieutenant Sheshkov. He graduated from the Reserve Officers Training Team. When the war broke out, he was very happy, because the war gave him the opportunity to put on the officer's uniform every day and shout out the password to the dying young people in a crisp and dignified voice. However, due to poor eyesight and fistula, he is not in danger of going to the front. In order to please his superiors and make a fortune, he frantically concentrated on training his squadron to win the review. Because he developed a marching queue without waving his hands, he was called a "real military genius". From then on, he rose rapidly step by step and finally became a lieutenant general commander. The other is Milo, the canteen manager. He seems to be honest, but in fact he has the ability to make money. In the name of grain purchasing, he made a lot of speculation and set up a multinational company. He used a large number of planes to smuggle, even hired enemy planes to transport for the company, contracted the enemy to guard the bridge and so on. Later, he became an internationally famous figure, and became the mayor of many European cities and the deputy governor of Malta.
Jocelyn, the hero of this book, lives in this strange world around the monster of war. He is the bomber captain of the squadron to which this flight brigade belongs. He devoted himself to the war with the enthusiasm of saving justice, made meritorious military service and was promoted to captain. However, slowly, in the conflict with the surrounding dangerous environment, he witnessed all kinds of illusory, absurd, crazy and cruel phenomena and realized that he had been cheated. He turned seriousness and sincerity into cynicism, from loving war to hating it. He doesn't want to be promoted to a higher position or make unnecessary sacrifices. He just wants to go home alive. Seeing his companions die in batches, I was afraid that people around me would plot against him and kill him. He repeated that "every one of them tried to kill me". He is eager to save his life and is determined to escape from this "world". So he pretended to be ill and wanted to spend the rest of the war years in the hospital, but he failed. According to catch-22, only a madman can be allowed to fly, but he must devote himself wholeheartedly; At the same time, it is stipulated that anyone who can realize the danger of flight and apply for exemption from flight should continue to perform the mission. Catch-22 also stipulates that pilots can return to China after flying the number of times specified by their superiors, but it also says that you must obey orders absolutely, otherwise you are not allowed to return to China. Therefore, superiors can constantly increase the number of flights for pilots, and you must obey. So repeated, never ending. Finally, Yossarian finally understood that Catch-22 turned out to be a scam, a trap and an insurmountable obstacle. The world is ruled by catch-22 everywhere, just like a tight encirclement, you can't get rid of it. He believes that the world is using the so-called "just behavior" to rob itself. Finally, he had to flee and flee to Sweden.
The following is joseph heller's creative resume and appreciation of Catch-22.
Joseph heller (1923) is an important representative of Black humorous story. Although his works are few, they have great influence. 1 may 1 day, joseph heller was born in new york. His father is a Jew who immigrated to America. At the age of 5, his father died and his family fell into poverty. Before graduating from high school, he became a postman. After the outbreak of World War II, 19 was drafted into the army, served in the US Air Force, served as a bomber, and performed about 60 missions. This experience laid a solid foundation for his later creation. After World War II, Joseph Heller University studied or engaged in teaching and research. 1952 dabbled in newspapers and engaged in literary creation in his spare time.
196 1 year, joseph heller's first novel Catch-22 came out, which caused a sensation in the literary world, thus establishing his important position in the contemporary western literary world. 1974 represents the second masterpiece "Something Happened". The novel reflects the spiritual crisis of American society, especially the middle class, from the perspective of Slocombe, a senior employee of a big company. "Something's wrong" is a high-level summary of this crisis. Slocombe is rich and rich, but he is always worried. He is afraid of his superiors and subordinates. He hates his wife and children. I am afraid of "terrible strange things" every day. "However, nothing strange is a surprising strange thing in itself." People around him are as "unhappy" as he is, and everyone is very dangerous and panicky. Slocombe knew that the world must be "out of order", but he couldn't figure out why it was "out of order" and "out of order". "There is only painful and helpless ridicule and self-mockery". From 65438 to 0979, joseph heller published his third novel As Good as Gauld. By showing the deformed spiritual world of an American Jewish university professor, it profoundly reminds the corruption of American bureaucracy, and it is one of the best political satire novels with black humor style in the United States after World War II.
Catch-22 is a classic of black humor, which reflects the life of the US Air Force brigade stationed in the Mediterranean "Pianozza Island" during World War II (this time it was invented by a screenwriter). The novel * * * has forty-two chapters, and there is no unified and complete plot. Each chapter mainly tells the story of a character, and then these stories, large and small, are connected by the experience of the character Youssolin throughout the book. The author doesn't want to talk about it, but uses it as a metaphor to show the absurd living conditions of modern people.
The characters written by writers all belong to the category of anti-heroes.
Youssolin is the captain of the bomber. He hates war, and survival has become the highest purpose of his life. In order to escape the battle, he pretended to be ill and was hospitalized many times. Once the hospital informed him to leave the hospital. In desperation, he imitated a patient in the same ward and shouted, "I see everything with two images." Later, the doctor who checked out stretched out one or two fingers, but there was still none. He insisted that it was two, so the doctor had to let him continue to be hospitalized for observation. I don't want the patient who said he saw two images for the first time to really die that night. Yossarian shouted in horror, "I see everything has an image." No matter whether the doctor held out one, two or ten fingers, he said without hesitation that he saw one. The hospital firmly believes that he has recovered. Although his normal answer was still wrong, he was sent to the front. Youssolin's farce of pretending to be ill ended like this, but his struggle to save his life continued unremittingly: secretly mixing soapy water into the pilot's food, causing collective diarrhea and canceling the flight; Sneak into the war room late at night, steal the bombing route, and fly to a safe area without air defense system; After taking off, he said that the plane had "trouble" and asked to return. After flying to the target, he is ready to fly up at the moment of diving and dropping bombs, whether he hits it or not. After his clothes were stained with the blood of his injured companion, he vowed never to wear clothes again. He only wears big leather shoes every day, and walks around the barracks naked like a Honky, even when he lines up. Once, he accidentally hit a target, and the boss gave him a medal with no place to wear.
The fear of death of Yossarian should be dialectically analyzed. Under the banner of fighting for the motherland, Colonel Cascade, as the representative of the upper litigation, disobeyed the death words of his subordinates for his own promotion, and repeatedly increased the number of flights and increased the flight danger. Yossarian clearly saw through all this, and he was more like a normal person than his companions who unconsciously lost their survival instinct. No wonder the brigade doctor said: The only sane person now may be Yossarian, the crazy son of a bitch. Finally, he refused to go back to China to do war propaganda and defected to neutral Switzerland. He said: "I don't want to escape responsibility, but I want to take responsibility." From this point of view, Yousulin's existence has its rationality, and he is also an anti-hero in the heroic sense.
In the absurd world, good and evil are reversed, beauty and ugliness are translocated, heroes are villains and elites are scum. In this paradox, the promoted captain Shays Kopf made a fortune. He is Milo, the food administrator.
Captain Shays Kopf is a ruthless careerist. The outbreak of the war made him ecstatic and regarded it as a good opportunity for promotion. He was only responsible for training the team and didn't have to worry about his life. In order to make a blockbuster, he racked his brains and couldn't sleep at night. He practiced with chocolate candy, plastic chess pieces and a living model-his wife. He imagined nailing a column of twelve soldiers to a wooden stick, and now inserting a nickel alloy rotary bearing at each waist; It is also envisaged to hammer nails made of nickel alloy into the femur of each soldier, and then connect the wrists with the nails with copper wires. Later, because time did not allow, there were not so many bearings and nails in the quartermaster room, and surgeons were unwilling to cooperate. He never gave up, continued to study hard, and finally creatively invented the method of marching without shaking his hand, which made him famous as a "military genius" and soared from then on.
Milo, a 27-year-old junior officer, is just a grain manager, but he can make a fortune in the war. Milo created the slogan "everyone's syndicate". Because Germany, the belligerent country, is also a shareholder, Milo can also command German bombers to land at the US military airport in order to pull goods. When the US military wanted to seize the enemy plane, Milo severely reprimanded: "When did the US government's policy of confiscating citizens' property begin? How can you confiscate your property? "Give the officers and men a vivid lesson.
Milo is morally bankrupt for money. He speculates, buys food at a low price and sells it to the canteen at a high price; After he lost money on cotton, he gave the pilot "chocolate marshmallows", real cotton wrapped in chocolate; He secretly took morphine from the wounded rescue bag to relieve pain and sold it at a high price on the black market; He has extraordinary power to contract "military combat projects": first, he evaluated the contract for bombing German facilities with the US military and extracted 6% of the bombing fee. In turn, he evaluated the contract for protection facilities with the German military and charged a 6% defense fee. He also said that every time he lost an American plane, he had to increase the rebate of 1000. In this way, he still feels that making money is too slow. In order to make huge profits, he personally directed the American bombers to blow up the American airport, leaving only the runway and canteen, because he had to land for dinner after completing the task. Miro took a small part of the huge commission, compensated the loss of life and property, and became an innocent hero who earned income for the syndicate. Milo is not only very popular in the army, but also regarded as a god in the local area. In view of his invigorating the economy, he was named mayor, crown prince, caliph, imam and chief, and there is a huge statue of him deep in the African jungle. In Milo's mind, there are only money and interests, and there is no concept of the motherland at all.
Catch-22 is a typical black humor style, which is full of joy and sadness, exaggerated to the point of absurdity. This is first manifested in the writer's artistic conception based on irony Since the world is absurd, truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and ugliness have all lost their normal standards. Writers write abnormal things, which makes the incredible things reasonable, while all normal things are absurd, which makes the absurd world full of sense of humor. For example, the cartoons of the above characters are mainly portrayed by irony. Another example is when introducing the medical level of the flight base. The author wrote quietly that a zoologist who studied whales was sent to be a military doctor. No matter who comes to see a doctor, the two medical assistants cover their gums and toes with purple liquid and then pour laxatives on them. And all this is ridiculous and normal. When readers understand the author's subtext, they can gain a sense of humor.
Joseph heller deliberately pursues the "aesthetic distance" between the writer and the content of expression, but only "takes a step back", writes about human misfortunes with indifference, restraint and pretence of ignorance, and dabbles in serious and important issues. A soldier, covered in white plaster and bandages, lay motionless on the bed. The liquid in the infusion bottle is fed into his body from his arm, and the excreta of the kidney is discharged into a clean bottle on the ground from the catheter in the abdomen and thigh. When the bottle is empty, the bottle below is full. The nurse turned the two bottles upside down and the excrement was reinjected into his body. Here, the writer deliberately distanced himself from the war casualties, and under the seemingly joking language, there was deep misfortune and bitterness.
The humor of the novel also comes from the logical paradox adopted by the writer. The author intends to make correct reasoning under the wrong premise, and finally draws absurd conclusions. Catch-22 is a typical example of Luo Jiaxun's theory. As stipulated: the madman must be grounded; It is also stipulated that the application must be made in person. Once someone applies for grounding for mental reasons, it means that he is sane, so he wants to fly. For another example, it is stipulated that you can stop flying after 60 flights, but you must always follow the commander's orders. Catch-22 is a "trap" and a trap. It laid a tight encirclement, making people want to cry without tears and have nowhere to go. It is an abstract symbol, symbolizing the alien power that plays tricks on people and destroys people at will. In the United States, "Catch-22" has become a lingua franca to refer to insurmountable difficulties and obstacles.
Joseph heller also skillfully uses logical paradox to construct the plot, which is amazing. If Dr. Danica wants to get a flying allowance, the customer adds his own name to a crew member. He doesn't want the plane to crash and all the crew members are killed. The doctor who had never flown was also declared dead. People mourned him and carefully avoided talking to him. The sergeant in charge told him not to show up again until the superior made a decision on his body arrangement. After her husband was killed in battle, his wife didn't believe his important letters. Dr. Danica was deprived of his right to life, unable to make a "free choice" at all, and could only stumble in the shadow like a sick mouse. Another example is pastor shipman, who offended his boss by putting in a good word for the pilot. One day he was suddenly taken to the basement for trial, and the major said, "This is a big crime you have committed." "What crime?" The priest is confused. "We don't know yet, but we will find out." The major asked the priest to sign, and the priest signed. The major was disappointed after reading it and accused, "This is not your handwriting." The priest shouted angrily, "Of course it's mine. You watch me write. " "That's the problem," the major said bitterly. The major preconceived that another handwriting belonged to the priest, and inferred from this wrong premise that the priest's own handwriting belonged to someone else. Under the strange circle of this paradox, the truth has become a false certificate, and people can't prove their words and deeds and get into many difficulties.
In addition, in casual ridicule, the writer showed sharp irony, pointing to the absurd point. He couldn't help laughing at first sight, and the fine products had a long aftertaste. Writers often deliberately use contradictory or contradictory words and sentences. For example, General Derridel boasted that "my only shortcoming is that I have no shortcomings". Dr. Danica said, "Saving lives is not my business." A colonel "feels proud when he finds himself incompetent", Milo said, "I never lie, only when necessary" and so on. In order to achieve ironic effect, the author also used exaggerated sentences, deliberately exaggerating, which actually meant the opposite meaning, such as describing the strange and grand ceremony of welcoming Milo locally. In a word, the author's technique of revealing absurdity between laughter and noise is a typical artistic style of black humorous stories.