Dehumanization Of Snowden's Death In Catch 22

In the novel Catch-22, Heller continuously uses repetition in order to create greater escalations to climaxes as well as gradually expose central ideas. Heller uses repetition in words, phrases, and scenes. One scene that reoccurs many times in order to reveal its central idea is Snowden's death. Snowden’s death starts off as a small detail and escalates into a greater idea through the many chapters it is mentioned in. The repetition of Snowden's death throughout the novel expresses the theme of dehumanization.

Early in the novel, Heller describes Snowden's death using very brief and inconsequential language. For example, Heller implements statements such as, “and Snowden lay dying in back” (50). These non-descriptive statements make Snowden’s death seem very insignificant, which indicates that Snowden is just another soldier dying. Soldiers die

Heller has changed the description from Snowden dying to Snowden being nothing but smeared blood on Yossarian. This change in description starts to dehumanize Snowden himself, making his death much more repugnant. Not only does this scene dehumanize Snowden by getting more descriptive and graphic, it also goes more in-depth on how the death is affecting Yossarian. In the state of shock that Yossarian is in, he is unable to fly missions. Since Yossarian can’t fly missions - and that is all they need him for - the doctors give him pills and shots that knock him out every time he wakes up. Yossarian asks how long this is going to go on and the doctor says, “until you feel better” (260). To the doctors, Yossarian feeling well is the same concept as being able to fly more missions. This notion is an effect of Snowden’s death and another way that Snowden’s death relays the theme of