“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22,” writes Heller, squatting low at the edge of the dimly lit ring, ready to tackle his target at the slightest indication of vulnerability. Dancing nimbly through the murky clouds of confusion obscuring war, Heller strikes out at insanity, grappling adroitly with his slippery objective before taking him down to the sweat-soaked mat. In a maneuver of grotesque dexterity, Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, articulates the public’s growing concern toward foreign entanglement in the era subsequent to World War Two, facing off not only against the inoperable chaos that is war, but also against the unruly opponent of insanity. Populating Heller’s Catch-22 is an array of miscellaneous characters representing a diverse and laughably comical smattering of backgrounds and mentalities. By throwing these unique identities into the melting pot of military requisition, Heller brews a potent antiwar concoction piping with animosity and bitter with fear.…
The Cruel Final Solution There was a conference that was known as Wannsee, that was held in Berlin, 1942. At the Wannsee conference, the SS, subdivisions, handled what was known as the Final Solution that targeted the Jews. The conference was brought up to light in the film Conspiracy, where the Final Solution was agreed upon Hitler’s fifteen men who debated the pros and cons of what was to be done to the Jews. In addition, the Final Solution determined what was going to happen to the Jews, but acts of violence targeted the Jews before the solution was determined. Although the Germans agreed to “evacuate” the Jews, there was one young Jew, Elie Wiesel, who tells his story of the horror Jews had to go through during the Holocaust.…
The Unredeemed Captive Based during the 1704 Deerfield massacre, a brutal fight between the French and Native Americans The Unreedemed Captive is about a family whom were captured by the Indians. The author John Demos has a rather unique sense of writing that is very compelling and very unique. John Demo’s style of writing requires critical thinking and a lot of analyzing. Throughtout this paper I will discuss the author’s methods of writing, the wrtiting’s overall effect, his arguememnt, and the resource bases used.…
Catch 22 Joseph Heller’s purpose when writing Catch 22 was to bring to light the events and problems of war, but show them through a satirical and almost comedic point of view. The author wants to show the readers how war truly is, and how the soldiers and other people involved handle it. He uses satire and irony to talk about such deep subjects so the book doesn’t get too dark. The author’s thesis is that wars can corrupt people and make them do things they wouldn’t usually do, and how the soldiers lives are in hands other than their own. Some characters of the book sell things on the black market, showing how little the people who serve our country make.…
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a war novel overflowing with confusion, lust, and guilt, captures its readers and throws them into the chaotic journey of Yossarian, a witty and smart aleck soldier, trying to escape war. While Heller hides his theme with the use of satire, the ride through his character’s lives during the war, lead his readers exactly to his main point. As Catch-22 marches its way through a vivid story of flashbacks and present obstacles the men face, Heller tips his reader to the theme with the use of loose ends, irony, and exaggeration. In Catch-22, Joseph Heller uses loose ends so his theme is not directly stated in the satire.…
All circumstances and subjects have various perspectives and points of view to them. A Catch 22 displays conflicting perspectives in which there isn't either a solitary decent or a terrible, positive or negative. In The Artificial River The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862, composed via Carol Sheriff, there are a wide range of cases of Catch 22s. Towns at first observed the Canal negatively affecting them, however acknowledged it could offer assistance. The Canal accommodated speedier transportation, however on account of a crash would set aside a long opportunity to recuperate from.…
It is more common for the public to hear of disasters rather disasters that were narrowly missed. In “The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis”, Joe Morgenstern tells the tale of structural engineer William LeMessurier navigating complicated ethical decisions in order to salvage a flawed building. By doing this LeMessurier risked his entire career and could have harmed thousands of people had he not made the right decisions. When LeMessurier had a student question a building he helped design, the Citicorp Center, he decided to test whether quartering winds would increase the strain on the building.…
Kurt Vonnegut, in his novel, “Slaughterhouse Five” recounts his experiences of World War II through Billy Pilgrim, the main character. Vonnegut’s purpose is to describe his wartime experiences and antiwar view. He adopts a complex and elusive tone in order to successfully engage and entertain his readers. Vonnegut begins his novel in the first person. We are given a first-person point of view in the sections embedded in the first and last chapters of the book.…
Generally, when people give reasons for why our lives do not matter, many turn to our smallness in the universe or to the fact that we do not live forever. However, Nagel suggests that even if we took up a larger portion of the universe, or if we lived forever, our lives would still be meaningless; our meaninglessness would just take up a larger percentage of space, or exist for a longer amount of time. Nagel states that these reasons are attempts to express the absurdity of life which arises from the paradoxical conscious awareness of our gratuitous stance in the world in combination with our need to take our lives seriously. Nagel defines the seemingly external viewpoint which humans are capable and bound to take, sub specie aeternitatis,…
Would survival be selfish if you were put into a situation like the holocaust? When death camps and gas chambers were all you could see? Or would surviving that dangerous horror filled time be a miracle in its place? Because surviving a situation that you have been put in, you might only be able to see getting out of it. Survival doesn’t require selfishness if your life is at risk as well as others, if you are really struggling and doing everything in your will power to survive.…
Natural life sentences are among the more less-known issues that are discussed today. A Natural life sentence is a prison sentence that lasts for entire life of the inmate it was given to, with no chance of parole or any other means of freedom. Jennifer Lackey discusses this issue into great detail in her article “The irrationality of natural life sentences”. In the article, Lackey does a great job of utilizing her three rhetoric tools, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in arguing her position on the issue.…
Although told in an oftentimes quirky and odd manner, Slaughterhouse-Five gives an intriguing perspective on World War II and the lasting effects that it had on the men who fought through it and went on to live out their lives in “normalcy”. The author, Kurt Vonnegut, uses irony, dark humor, and spontaneity to create an unorthodox depiction of the life of one of these said soldiers, Billy Pilgrim, the main character in the novel. In this light, he uses Pilgrim’s experiences in World War II to demonstrate the true nature of war to those who were fortunate enough to never experience it for themselves. The novel’s main theme, the destructiveness of war both internally and externally, is portrayed through Vonnegut’s illustration of the destruction…
What is the message being portrayed in “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut? What about “Catch 22” by Joseph Heller? These are two different reads that just happen to be very similar but also juxtapose each other when compared and contrasted. Slaughterhouse Five is the story of a man named Billy Pilgrim who focuses on the firebombing of Dresden during World War II while switching back and forth to different points of time in his life. Catch 22 is the story of a man, Captain John Yossarian, who is a bombardier but very much against World War II and due to the law of “Catch 22” his life is not his own.…
Irony and Satire In “Slaughterhouse Five” Before Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse five” even begins, Vonnegut is described as “America’s greatest satirist”. Considering this title, Vonnegut must be well suited within the realm of satirical literature. Along with this sense of commanding satire, Vonnegut demonstrates a affluent abundance of irony. Throughout this book,Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five”, satire and irony are masterfully used to create an emphatic and hilarious anti-war novel that which has the likes of one nobody has ever seen.…
A theme is a prominent aspect in any novel or work. A theme links the whole plot together and it helps develop the main message of the story. A theme can be defined as the psychoanalytical meaning of the work as it enables one to explore the work in depth. Furthermore, a theme allows an author to showcase their writing technique. In the “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, the absurdity of life is one of the major themes in the novella.…