Research Paper on:
Overcoming Death Through Comedy

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
order for the obstacles of death to be overcome. In "All in the Timing" which contains six one act plays, Ives frames the last 36 hours of Trotskys death by  the one act play proceeding it "The Universal Language" and the one act play which follows it "Philadelphia" which both included elements of the ridiculous while the Trotsky play itself  manages to overcome its dark content by Trotskys fear of ice picks all the while having a mountaineers axe wedged in his head. In "Catch-22" Joseph Heller frames the life  of his central character, Yossarian convinced that others are trying to kill him in the war and has a constant fear of death, with the deaths of others and the  unusual reactions to these deaths. Yossarian himself manages to overcome death by successfully employing many tactics in order to do so. Ironically however as Yossarian manages to overcome death, he  is more riddled by the death of others around him. As in the plays of Ives in which death is "talked around" the vision of Trotsky, a similar scene occurs  in "Catch-22" in the death of Mudd who dies not long after he arrives and is therefore dumped in his tent and ignored. Each death scene in "Catch-22" however contains  unusual observances and ultimately lightens its impact. David Ives "All in the Timing" is a series of one act plays which tell the  story of different situations all with a comical and satirical twist. Although the play is comprised of six one act plays, the plays are mixed depending on the director and  occasionally interchanged with other plays or presented with only five of the six acts depending upon the production. Regardless of the format of the presentation, all the one act plays