In five pages this paper examines the satirical aspects of the novel in terms of its presenation of military disorganization, a theme which would gain popular favor during the Vietnam War's unpopularity period. Five sources are cited in the bibliography.
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insanity of war. It stars Yossarian, a bombardier in the second world war who suddenly becomes aware that people are trying to kill him and he doesnt know why.
When he tries to tell the military doctor that he must be insane, he is told that, that he doesnt have to fly if hes crazy, but hes not
crazy because he doesnt want to fly (die). First and foremost, this novel is a satire on the disorganization of the military, war in general and time as a
means of understanding life. Newton described time as absolute and unchangeable. Einstein believed it was relative to the motion of the observer. In his ruminations on
time, Augustine contemplates the subjectivity of time - it is the basis of the human quest and, as such, is a distention of the self. Humans tend to perceive
time as linear, however, it is possible to live in the past and in the present; not, as Vonneguts Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time but, rather, as yet another mode
of experiencing - from the memory. Joseph Heller presents time as hindsight and as reality run amok (Field 241). Catch 22 is the alternate universe of the
bombardier, Yossarian. It is as the Chaplain believes: "there was really no way of knowing anything ... not even that there was no way of really knowing anything". Time
wasnt as important as trying to catch reality as it sauntered by (Heller 277). Time is simply memory, the problem lies in placing it at the correct point of
experience. The view Americans take of war generally takes on the substance of a moral argument concerning the need to step in on the side of the forces of freedom