Let’s look at a novel you probably read in high school…
Catch 22 is an antiwar novel published in 1961. Though it takes place in WW2, the novel is a satire of postwar America, which was at the time waging a bloody and stupid war in Korea.
Let’s look at chapter 1. We meet the protagonist, Yossarian, in the hospital, where he is heroically pretending to be sick to avoid doing his job.
- The novel has a reality that veers from horrifying to cartoonishly silly. Why do we accept it? How does he introduce this world, and its strange rules?
- Yossarian is a coward, in a war we culturally think of as heroic. Do we like him, regardless? Why?
- Do you use humor or satire in your work? How, and why? To lighten the mood, to make us like a certain character, to connect to the reader, etc.? How is Heller using it, here?
- This is a novel obsessed with paradoxes, in its characters, dialogue, plot, and even structure. Which ones stand out to you? What purpose do these paradoxes serve?