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2.3 Joseph Heller’s Writing Style
Joseph Heller is known as one of the representative writers of black humor. Heller’s works have the greatest influence on the black humor Literature and became the pillar of this art form.
As Hu Yingxue writed in her article, Joseph Heller’s works are obviously characterized by a satirical sense of the absurd which speak out against the military-industrial complex and those organized institutions which seem to manipulate people’s lives in the name of justice or morality (Hu Yingxue 12). His works are always inspired from real life and he is good at excavating social issues of his time so that the works of his often reveal the truth that people suffered a lot in that situation of that time. Heller’s works often start from the angle of surrealism instead of realism, and he always describes life in an exaggerate way that it is in fact another way to reveal the truth. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is set as an example in the following paragraph.
In Catch-22, Heller discarded the traditional realism and made whole works without a complete plot development clue. There was not a prominent character image. Instead, it is full of chaos, noisy, crazy atmosphere. Nevertheless, Heller also stressed a “serious absurd”, describing the whole American society from its internal dirty, corruption, and fall, especially those bureaucrats. Catch-22 mainly talked about the character’s inner spiritual life. Joseph Heller made use of things happened to different people to show that there was really something wrong with the society. He did not tell one story of one person. Instead, he described many things happened to different people. He also satirized the reality and politics through absurd and deforming description.
Ⅲ. Theme of Catch-22
After World War Ⅱ, America experienced a period of unprecedented economic boom. In 1950s, America became the big brother of the capitalism world. The Cold War broke out between America and Soviet Union. With the stronger of Soviet Union, many American began to be afraid of communism. They thought that the lives of American would be in danger. The republican from Wisconsin Joseph R McCarthy speaked out the fear of the American. McCarthyism made the young be resentful and limited the development of literature. Besides, exhausting all resources to build up American military power aroused the anti-war sentiment. Although World War Ⅱended in 1945, it was still difficult for people to get rid of the fear and nervous feelings caused by the war. The crime of Nazi and the using of atom all left a deep impression on people. People started to introspect themselves and doubted whether the technology benefit human or not because of the using of atom. In 1950s, the big success of superatomatic experiments and artificial satellite all made people feel unpeaceful in heart. And then in 1960s population explosion and deteriorated environment pollution made people feel ideological confusion. Democracy, inpidual pursuit religious belief all did not exist. Traditional moral beliefs and value system lost their effects. People were all confused and did not know what the true meaning of life was. The people in modern society lost connect with history and were tapped in lone and alienation. Under such political circumstance, Catch-22 came out to express the author’s feeling to a chaotic America. The theme of Catch-22 is to express people’s unbearable sufferings in that age of war in which everyone has to obey so-called rules like catch-22 in the name of justice and morality in a surreal writing method.
Catch-22 is a satirical and historical novel of Joseph Heller. According to David Seed in his book The Fiction of Joseph Heller, the history of American ideology includes elements of increasing sustainability (163). Catch-22 helped people to see clearly what kind of world they are living in. The book was set during the later stages of World War Ⅱ from 1944 onwards, which is frequently cited as one of the great literary works of the 20th century. It has a distinctive non-chronological style where events are described from different characters’ points of view and out of sequence so that the time line develops along with the plot.