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Catch 22 Satire

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War’s effect of wiping away the personal characteristics of the soldiers and amalgamating their identity demonstrates its destructive nature. In “An Overview of Catch-22,” Darren Felty’s critical essay, the author emphasizes Heller’s satire of the systematic devaluation of human life through war. Felty explains this scorn through the revelations of the character Yossarian, elaborating on how Heller uses Yossarian to denounce war’s dehumanization by asserting, His satire targets not just the military but all regimental institutions that treat individuals as cogs in a machine. His central character, Yossarian, recognizes the insanity of social institutions that devalue human life and tries to rebel against them, first in minor ways and finally through outright rejection of them (Felty). Through Yossarian, Heller satirizes systems that dehumanize …show more content…

These ideas simply do not exist, and any man is replaceable, even in intimate issues. The doctor uses Yossarian to replace a dead soldier for that soldier’s family, as if all the dead soldier’s personal connections meant nothing. To the system, individualism has no value, the soldiers are just replaceable matter. As both Heller and Felty prove, the systems of war treat all humans like matter. They devalue the soldiers to the point of ambiguity in which the individual is gone, replaceable with anyone. As the war tries to fuse Yossarian and his fellow soldiers into one massive identity, Yossarian fights back, combatting the forces that seek to raze his personal character. Yossarian is not just a simple, mass-produced part of a machine, but a unique being with his own world of thoughts, resisting the system to preserve this idea. War’s destructive nature wipes away all personal characteristics of the soldiers, coercing them into one entity and destroying the fundamental American ideal of

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Yossarian embodies the nature of what Heller believes an armed forces individual faces every day in a satirical manner, and serves to develop the novel in the same regard in which Heller experienced war first hand, even though some of this novel is fictitious. Catch- 22 is not another cookie- cutter war novel, but is culturally relevant to every American individual as it evoked a new movement of anti-war isolationism in the 20th century, and as it expresses the themes and emotions of what it means to fight for one’s country. The ideas of emphasizing one’s own perspective and beliefs further connects to this notion as this democratic ideal is one by which America was founded upon, over two centuries ago. While some may believe that Catch- 22 as a novel is derogatory and gross with its portrayal of women, reading this novel allows an individual to become more culturally proficient in their daily language. When conflicted with a tough problem or challenge with no apparent solution, one can say they are in a “Catch- 22”… but can also recite the cultural significance of the phrase to their favorite English teacher for extra

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By manipulating the war setting and language of the novel Heller is able to depict society as dark and twisted. Heller demonstrates his thoughts of society through the depicted war. In the novel, the loss of personal identity in the soldiers lives. Furthermore, The idea is that supports how much value is placed upon a human life and shows the evils and cruelty of war is related The Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell, in which a soldier who spends his entire life in war only to die the same position he came into the war “fetal” state; just to be disregarded and buried in a whole.

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