Joseph Heller
JOSEPH HELLER
(1923-1999)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Heller war born in Brooklyn,
New York, as the son of poor Jewish
parents.
 After graduating High School in 1941,
Heller joined the Twelfth Air Force
where he flew 60 combat missions as a
B-25 bombardier.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In the early 1950s he started working on
Catch-22.
 The novel went largely unnoticed until
1962, when its English publication
received critical praise

CATCH 22
A CLASSIC

One of the most
influential book in
modern literature .

Huge impact on
popular culture and
literary circles
A CLASSIC

It introduced the
post war world to
the concept of
‘Black Humor’
 This book also gives
us the first true
‘anti-hero.’
THE SETTING
World War 2. Americans in Italy wait every day for
the next mission. Some people are just crazy about it,
others detest the entire business. And for those who
detest it there are only two ways of getting rid of it: a)
you could get killed, or b) you could get grounded. So,
the system works in a way that makes the in-chargeof-grounding-people people ground every man who's
physically damaged or mentally crazy. Therefore, in
order to be grounded, all you have to do is to be, or
pretend to be, crazy. There is only one catch. Catch22.
THE CHARACTERS
Yossarian
 Colonel Cathcart
 Orr
 Dunbar
 Nately
 Chaplain A. T. Tappman
 Milo Minderbinder
 Major Major Major Major
 Snowden


Yossarian: The main character of the
novel. Yossarian is a paranoid
bombardier who thinks everyone is
trying to kill him. He avoids flying
combat missions by all means possible:
by moving the bomb line on the map of
Italy preceding the Bologna mission, by
poisoning the squadron’s potatoes, by
dismantling his intercom and ordering
his plane to turn back, and by feigning
a liver condition to pass the time safely
in the hospital.

Colonel Cathcart : A conceited and
dejected colonel who constantly tries to
garner attention and desperately wants to be
a general. Cathcart is the main antagonist of
the novel because he volunteers his men for
dangerous assignments and constantly raises
the number of missions in a tour of duty to
break records. He carries a cigarette holder to
make him look sophisticated and is obsessed
with getting his picture in The Saturday
Evening Post. Cathcart is plagued by a
persecution complex and constantly tallies up
pros and cons as 'feathers in his cap' and
'black eyes.'

Orr: Yossarian’s warm-hearted roommate,
whose inventions (like a wood-burning stove)
make their tent the most luxurious in the
squadron. The unlucky, buck-toothed freak
crash-lands on every mission. He asks
Yossarian to fly with him, but Yossarian
refuses. Everyone things Orr is simple-minded
because he stuffs his fat cheeks with apples.
His pretend ignorance is actually a cover and
the frequent crashes are really practice for his
escape to Sweden. He wanted Yossarian to
join him, but his roommate never took the
hint.

Dunbar: Yossarian’s mischievous friend who
cultivates boredom to increase his life-span. Dunbar
stirs up trouble, fondling nurses with Yossarian and
inciting a riot in the hospital over the soldier in white.
Officials cause Dunbar to mysteriously 'disappear'
before Yossarian can warn him of the impending
trouble.

Nately: A rich, gentle, polite, good looking young
man who looks out for Yossarian. Patriotic and
idealistic, Nately finishes his missions but signs on for
more because he is desperate to stay near his
beloved girl. He wants to marry her, even though his
wealthy father will disapprove. Nately is tragically
killed on one of these extra missions, and his death
deeply affects the chaplain and Yossarian.

Chaplain A. T. Tappman :An Anabaptist minister
who is shy and self-conscious. He lives on the
woodsy outskirts of camp and is pushed around by
officials and his own assistant. Homesick and
submissive, he longs for his wife and is grateful for
Yossarian’s friendship. He often pleads with higher
ranking officials on Yossarian’s behalf to stop raising
the number of missions and to send the men home.

Milo Minderbinder: The mess hall officer who
creates an international trade syndicate in which
everyone has a share. The entrepreneur is hugely
successful and is elected to various public offices in
countries along his trade route. Milo conspires with
the Germans to bomb his own unit for profit and sells
mission plans to the enemy. M & M Enterprises nearly
collapses when Milo purchases a whole crop of
Egyptian cotton. He tries to feed the cotton to troops
in the mess halls by covering it with chocolate. Milo
rationalizes everything by profit potential and
convinces the army to support him because the
syndicate is owned in part by everyone.

Major Major : A reclusive Henry Fonda look-alike
who was promoted to the rank of major by an IBM
computer glitch. He jumps out of his window to avoid
visitors and spends the better part of each day
forging Washington Irving’s name to official
documents

Snowden: A radio-gunner who is killed during the
Avignon mission. His guts spilled onto Yossarian in
the back of the plane while he bled and froze to
death. Snowden’s gory death haunts Yossarian. The
chaplain conducts Snowden’s funeral and Yossarian
walks around naked for a while, refusing to wear the
uniform once soaked in Snowden’s blood.
THE CATCH

What CATCH-22 really is, is the evil circles that
society frequently gets us into - in this book it takes
shape in form of a non-non-mission-flying kind of evil
circle. In fact, everybody who do fly the missions are
considered crazy, and all they have to do to be
grounded is ask for it. But, and here CATCH-22
enters the picture, everybody who do not want to fly
the missions and for that reason asks to be grounded,
are no longer considered crazy, and must therefore
continue to fly the missions.
THE CATCH

CATCH-22 is a military term that is confusing and
difficult to describe. In short, its basic meaning is that
if there was a rule, no matter what the rule is, there is
always an exception to it. It is a mysterious regulation
that is in essence a circular argument. This catch
keeps Yossarian in the war because a concern for
one's own life proved that he is not really crazy, and
to get out of combat you have to be crazy. The catch
is used by the superior powers to uphold and
increase their power, and yet it is harmful to those
who do not have power in the first place. It creates
situations where, when you think everything is perfect,
CATCH-22 pops up and makes your plans
impossible
LITERARY SIGNATURE
Heller does an excellent job of creating a dismal, war torn
environment. One of the features of expressionist writing
is its concentration on the emotional. And Heller brings out
the very emotional side of war. He has certain scenes (such
as the one with the Snowdon, a new recruit who dies in
Yossarian’s arms in the back of a plane) that continuously
repeat throughout the novel. Each time it repeats, a little
more detail is added. Each time a little more detail is added,
the reader reacts differently. It is beautifully done. By
playing with the reader's emotions and making the reader
constantly reconsider their previous reactions, Heller paints
a confusing tapestry for his setting and plot.
Departing from pure realism, he aimed
for a book that would make people
laugh, and then look back in horror at
what had amused them
REACTIONS

Catch-22 aroused mixed reactions when it
was published in 1961. John Pine of Library
Journal, for example, recommended the
"tedious" book only to libraries with large
fiction collections. Novelist Nelson Algren, on
the other hand, wrote that it was "the best
American novel that has come out of
anywhere in years."
REACTIONS
In England, Catch-22 hit the best-seller list the
first week after being published in 1962.
Sales rose in the United States in response.
By the mid-1960s, Newsweek magazine was
reporting "The Heller Cult," and college
students were wearing Army field jackets with
Yossarian name tags. Students related the
novel not so much to World War II or the
Korean Conflict as to the Vietnam War then
beginning to escalate.
REACTIONS
Seeing the war as profitable only to the
industrial and military "Establishment," they
opposed American involvement in Vietnam
and adopted bumper stickers reading "Better
Yossarian than Rotarian” (a club for
"Establishment" businessmen).
CONCLUSION
There is a line in the novel which goes as-"All over the world, boys on every side of the
bomb line were laying down their lives for
what they had been told was their country,
and no one seemed to mind, least of all the
boys who were laying down their young lives.
There was no end in sight.“

CONCLUSION
This is the essence of the whole book,
despite it’s humor and wisecracks it
remains a book that questions the
concepts of martyrdom and patriotism.
The book is brutal and unrelenting in
nature and would not be forgotten by
those who can take it.