Personal Rebellion in Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - Research Paper Example

? Personal Rebellion in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was first published in 1961. This novel added a concept to the American colloquial speech and a word to the dictionary: “a difficult situation or problem whose seemingly alternative solutions are logically invalid” (Hoberman 9). The novel has a strong anti-war focus. It tells about the events which took place in 1943 at the Air Force Base on the island of Pianosa off the coast of Italy. For some time Air Force Capt. Yossarian has been a normal soldier, although in the context of the novel this combination of looks absurd. He was ready to comply with the U.S. Air Force standard of twenty-five combat missions and go home. However, Colonel Cathkart dreaming of fame at any cost, patriotically increases the number of required missions and it makes Yossarian’s desire to go home unreal. Actually, in some time Yossarian begins to fight worse and worse. Going up in the air he has a single goal – to return alive, and he totally does not care where they drop bombs – on the enemy’s object, or in the sea. But the commanders fight bravely, ready to carry out the most daring operations, as long as their subordinates risk their lives. They heroically disregard the dangers borne by others. It is not a problem to bomb the Italian mountain village, even without warning civilians. They are not afraid that there will be casualties, since it will create a perfect jam for enemy equipment. They are fiercely fighting each other for a place under the sun. Thus, General Peckem is plotting the defeat of the insidious enemy, which is the other American General Dreedle. For the sake of the general’s epaulettes Cathkart mercilessly exploits his pilots. Each of the many characters in this literary mural has its own war to win in, and for the victory they would spare neither effort nor life, someone else’s life. Horrified by this orgy of madness and ecstasy of war Yossarian comes to the conclusion: if he does not take care of himself, he will die. This is a question of “to be or not to be”, and the hero clearly leans in favor of living. The motif of rebellion takes an important place in the novel Catch-22. Closely intertwined with other motives (madness, absurdity of the world, gaining freedom), it serves not only to reveal the image of the protagonist of the novel Yossarian, but also the ideological and philosophical perspectives of Catch-22. Images and perspectives are revealed step by step: with each new episode of the central themes of the novel acquire new sensual fullness and variety of interpretations: The most significant aspect of the structure of Catch-22 is its chronology. Behind what appears to be merely random events lies a careful system of time-sequences involving two distinct and mutually contradictory chronologies (Gaukroger 71). This is largely due to the multi-faceted structure of the novel, “disparate elements of its structure as the seeming chaos of its surface text and its unrelenting comedy” (Woodson 153). Chaotic at first glance, the text of the first chapters of in the end of the novel acquires a clear structure; isolated episodes are arranged into a single event line. With immersion into the atmosphere of Catch-22 a comic element is reduced to a bitter sarcasm and almost disappears in the final chapters. According to Joseph Heller: But certainly there is nothing funny about death; there is nothing funny about the death of a young man, and the fact I often in Catch-22 present the death of somebody in a flippant or disrespectful way was not only intended to have almost a contrapuntal effect—to avoid sentimentality—but also to make it perhaps more effective by dismissing the seriousness of death briefly as well (quoted in Meredith 50) Absurdity, which at the beginning of the novel is perceived more as a literary device, is gradually revealed as an existentialist category. The same event is described repeatedly, shown through the lens of views of different characters, the same facts are presented in different situations, each time forcing the reader to look at them from another angle, and the philosophical perspective of the novel gradually appears from this polyphony. Thus, in the ninth chapter of the novel the reader learns that after the raid to Avignon Yossarian behaved very indecently: taking off all his clothes after the Avignon mission and going around without them right up to the day General Dreedle stepped up to pin a medal on him for his heroism over Ferrara and found him standing in formation stark naked (Heller 77). At first, his behavior seems to be simply eccentric, buffoonery, or perhaps an attempt to pretend to be crazy and avoid combat missions. The second time Heller returns to this theme in the twenty-first chapter, where Captain Wren explained that the gunner in the Yossarian’s plane was killed, and splattered with blood all his clothes, and he had since then refused to wear military uniform. Thus, the reader gets a logical explanation for the Yossarian’s behavior, the explanation of a deliberately dry and laconic character: Captain Wren states the fact without giving it any emotional evaluation. And the third time this incident is described in the end – in the forty-first chapter. Only now, the author recounts the story of the Snowden’s death, the story of Yossarian’s colleague and friend who died in his arms. Description of this scene is full of naturalistic details. The reader is invited to feel every moment and at least come little closer to understanding of the emotional turmoil, which was experienced by Yossarian: Yossarian ripped open the snaps of Snowden's flak suit and heard himself scream wildly as Snowden’s insides slithered down to the floor in a soggy pile and just kept dripping out (Heller 338). Thus, perception of the reader of Yossarian, who initially appears as a bored prankster, censoring letters to soldiers and signing as Washington Irving, or Irving Washington is gradually changing and becoming more complex. Then the reader learns that for some time now he’s been afraid to fly and by all means is trying to get an exemption from combat missions. And only by the end of the novel this character appears to be an exposer of the crimes against morality and humanity that are committed by the officers and commanders of the military base on the island if Pianosa, and refusal of Yossarian to carry out combat missions develops from the private military conflict with the commander into an individualistic, existential rebellion and acquires a universal character. Captain Yossarian refuses to fly because the commanders are constantly increasing rate of operation flights. In order to get an exempt from flight he pretends to be crazy, but in this case there is a legal catch – a catch number 22: There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. 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 (Heller 33). Yossarian is unable to accept the surrounding reality, as it contradicts both common sense and his ideas about morality, and the elementary instinct of self-preservation. But his colleagues do not feel the irrationality of this reality; they consider Yossarian to be crazy: The only thing going on was a war, and no one seemed to notice but Yossarian and Dunbar. And when Yossarian tried to remind people, they drew away from him and thought he was crazy. Even Clevinger, who should have known better but didn’t, had told him he was crazy the last time they had seen each other, which was just before Yossarian had fled into the hospital (Heller 9). Yossarian is the hero, which is characteristic for “carnival” literature. He is a madman, a buffoon, laughed at by everyone, even though he was able to see the truth, while those who call him crazy, as emphasized by Heller, had long ago lost their minds themselves: “I was trying to raise one of the several questions about behavior in a certain situation: Are you crazy to obey orders you know are irrational, or are you crazy to disobey them?” (quoted in Meredith 52). Against this background of “crazy” Yossarian seems the only sane person: For Yossarian and his comrades, there can be no mental breakdown because nothing could be more insane than following the norm—continuing to fly missions—especially when the norm set by Colonel Cathcart was abnormal (Nadel 167). However, the scenes in which the novel’s characters make inappropriate, reckless acts are introduced not only to explain the behavior of the protagonist: they have both meaning and genre importance. In Catch-22 Heller carries out moral and psychological experiments, i.e. he portrays unusual, abnormal moral and psychological states of the individual – all sorts of madness. These episodes are destroying the epic and tragic integrity of man and his fate: he reveals the possibilities of another man and another life; he loses its completeness and unambiguousness. For example, the scene where the Italian prostitute attacks Yossarian with a knife is the culmination of his moral quest, because at this moment he comes to a sense of responsibility of each individual for all that is happening in the world around him: Yossarian thought he knew why Nately’s whore held him responsible for Nately’s death and wanted to kill him. Why the hell shouldn’t she? It was a man’s world, and she and everyone younger had every right to blame him and everyone older for every unnatural tragedy that befell them; just as she, even in her grief, was to blame for every man-made misery that landed on her kid sister and on all other children behind her. Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all (Heller 312). In other words, at this very moment the hero’s riot acquires a truly humanistic pathos. Now, Yossarian cannot seek salvation for himself alone. “It’s a way to save yourself’ - ‘It’s a way to lose myself, Danby. You ought to know that” (Heller 344) – this is how Yossarian explains his rejection of the proposal made by Cathcart and Korn to become free in exchange for a promise to help preserve a positive image of the command. But Yossarian does not want fly either, because both options mean taming the rebel, his willingness to submit to circumstances. And Yossarian decides to escape. Yossarian’s riot allows drawing parallels between the Catch-22 and works of the literature of “lost generation”, because Heller, like Hemingway or Aldington, introduce the motive of desertion, escape, and protest against the state machine, which, for the sake of some abstract goals, grinds personal happiness of man. However, the rebellion of the protagonist is filled by Heller with a new meaning. Yossarian does not just affirms the exceptional value of his life as a single person, he makes it valuable, as he takes responsibility for what is happening and commits acts motivated by feelings of justice and humanism. This concept of freedom as the responsibility reveals connection with the works of existentialist writers: making the absurdity not a final conclusion, but the starting point of philosophical research, Heller expresses the idea is just as skillfully as Sartre or Camus. Yossarian’s riot is nothing but realization that a man being condemned to freedom carries the entire burden of the world on his shoulders; he is responsible for peace and for himself. Humanistic pathos of the novel and the philosophical and moral significance of rebellion of the protagonist is described also by means of the system of images skillfully constructed by author. Heller creates the appearance of chaos, randomness of occurrence of these characters in the novel and the lack of any logic in the point at which the reader learns life story of a hero. However, this is another illusion created by the author, one more literary device, which he uses because there are no accidents in this series of different images; each one has its place in the structure of the novel and its significance for learning the basic ideas of the novel. Characters in the novel have descriptive names and last names, their appearance and personality traits are depicted grotesque, each of them is important for the author not as a social and psychological type, but as the carrier of a particular world view. Some, like Yossarian, see the injustice and immorality of what is happening, but, unlike him, they are not capable of existential rebellion, because burden of responsibility is too heavy for them. For example, Orr is fighting for freedom for himself; his act is not a rebellion, but simply an escape. Chief White Halfoat can only think about the troubles of his people and hatred for the white man, and it narrows his view of the world, deprives him of the opportunity to see the problems of universal character. Major Danby saves himself by paying no attention to war crimes, justifying it by the fact that they are only particular cases, which do not obstruct the bright ideals: “I try not to think of that… But I try to concentrate on only the big result and to forget that they are succeeding, too. I try to pretend that they are not significant” (Heller 343). The chaplain does not have the guts to confront people like Cathcart, and only seeing Yossarian’s example, he is inspired to fight. Another group consists of people who take the horrors of war as something familiar, which became part of this irrational reality. Aarfy, Havermeyer and others like them continue to fly without complaints and escape from stress in the taverns and brothels; they slowly go mad and lose their human form. This group is adjoined by their incompetent and helpless commanders: Major Major, who hides from visitors escaping through a window, a lover of military parades Scheisskopf, whose name speaks for itself, leaving no doubt as to the complete lack of intelligence in this character. The third group consists of characters like Cathcart and Milo Minderbinder, for whom the war is a profitable business. Milo takes a special place in the novel: this is perhaps the brightest carnival mask. He is both a successful businessman and a gifted orator who can logically explain everything, even the need to bomb their own fellow soldiers, and a clever rascal who makes profit even from small things, such as stealing someone else’s sheets. In one chapter he suddenly turns to be the mayor of Palermo (it’s another typical carnival theme – celebration of clownish king, crowned with a crown during a holiday). Even Milo, even to a greater extent than Cathcart and Korn, is a carrier of the antithesis which opposes the ideological beliefs of the protagonist. At first glance, Milo seems that the character, who was able to achieve true freedom for himself: he is not risking his life, his commercial enterprise flourishes, and all the military authorities cover his crimes. But this is only an illusion of freedom. Milo accepts the absurdity of what is happening and subdues his actions to perverse logic of people like Cathcart and Korn. As a matter of fact Milo is the only character in the novel, who seems to be able to resist exploitation and oppression. He has become so indispensable to the syndicate, that he was even able to avoid combat missions. And it seems that he is free to do whatever he wants. But this is only apparent, because Milo has only freedom of action and greed, but he does not belong to himself. He is so wallowed in trading fraud that he lost all ability to display human feelings towards others. In other words, Milo has the external freedom with the complete absence of internal freedom. And this, in fact, is the same rule as in Catch-22: Milo and people like him enjoy freedom of action because it is obvious that they will not take advantage of it and will not do anything that could change the system. And if there were any chance that a man like Milo turns into a rebel, he would never have got complete freedom of action. In fact, Milo is no better than a rapist and murderer Aarfy, and maybe even worse, because his crimes have a frightening scale. David Richter rightly calls Milo and Aarfi “moral imbeciles”, unable to give any moral assessment of their actions (Richter 150). Both characters are far from true freedom, because they are not able to experience the feeling of freedom, self-esteem, as well as compassion, remorse, humanity, responsibility for their actions – all the things that an individual should feel. Yossarian was able find true freedom. Throughout the novel he is trying by all means to preserve himself in all senses of the word – to survive and remain human. He clearly felt his responsibility for the world in which he lives. And his actions, even those that at first glance appear to be complete madness are the consequence of this growing feeling. And even Yossarian’s decision to escape to Sweden is not merely a desperate attempt to save his own life culminating his rebellion. In a sense, Catch-22 is the antithesis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: two madhouses, in one of which all people are crazy, though they think very logically, and in another everybody is officially healthy, but actually obsessed, often violently. Both books end with escapes. But while “crazy” Chief escapes by a logical and easily accessible route to Canada, the “normal” Yossarian choses an absolutely fantastic route from Rome to Sweden, because place is not importance – freedom is his goal. This action is filled with humanistic sense; it is confirmation of human life as the highest value: “I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life” (Heller 348). As Joseph Heller said in one of the interviews: The conflicts that I try to present had to do with individuals in conflict with each other, about individuals underneath the authority of leaders who were either neglecting or were indifferent to their responsibility, or who were maybe not up to that responsibility (quoted in Meredith 50). Determination of Yossarian to resist the absurdity of reality makes him a real hero, since a true hero is the one who is ready to carry on his shoulders the entire burden of responsibility. And taking this responsibility Yossarian finds true freedom. Works Cited Gaukroger, D. “Time Structure in Catch-22”, Critique, Volume: 12. Issue: 2, 1970. P.71. Heller, J. Catch-22. Retrieved 20.04.2011 from Hoberman, J. “Only One Catch”, Artforum International, Volume: 33. Issue: 2, October 1994, P.9. Meredith, J. Understanding the Literature of World War II: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Nadel, A. Containment Culture: American Narrative, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Richter, D. Fable’s End: Completeness and Closure in Rhetorical Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. Woodson, J. A Study of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22: Going around Twice. New York: Peter Lang, 2001. 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