Catch-22

Word Count: 612

Catch-What??

    Catch-22 is one of the most poorly constructed, and distasteful books I’ve ever read. It’s order of events, or lack of order, becomes clear after the very first chapter. In fact “It doesn’t even seem to have been written; instead it gives the impression of having been shouted onto paper” (Stern 50). By the middle of the book it seems every character in the book has lost any sense of morality they may have seemed to have. The novel “gasps for want of craft and sensibility” (Stern 50).    
It seems to me that the only way to keep track of the order of events throughout the book is to pay attention to how many missions Colonel Cathcart has assigned. Immediately, even after the first chapter, chronological order is not followed. According to “The Structure of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22” by Jan Solomon the order of events seemed to follow two different time lines. The first, of course, was that of Yossarian. Yossarian’s time line follows his “psychological perception of events” (Potts 20). The other time line that appears in the book, according to Solomon, is that of Milo Minderbinder. Even this interpretation of the book having an order of events has a couple flaws in it. The biggest is that Milo and Yossarian are mentioned together in the book before they are introduced later in the book. The most apparent event that came to mind, was that they appeared together at Snowden’s funeral in the tree before they were introduced later in the book, which is actually earlier in time.
    The book shows how personal morals are destroyed when faced with the thought of not being there the next day. “Many early reviewers… complained that the novel had no moral center” This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now!

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