Catch-22

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Catch-22

THE LITERARY WORK

A novel set on an American Army Air Force base on the island of Pianosa off the coast of Italy during the last years of World War II (approximately 1944-45); published in 1961.

SYNOPSIS

A young bombardier, Yossarian, attempts to survive amid the chaos and absurdities of war.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

The Novel in Focus

Events in History at the Time the Novel Was Written

For More Information

Born May 1, 1923, Joseph Heller flew as a bombardier on some sixty combat missions for the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. He went on to teach English at Pennsylvania State University, then worked in magazine publishing, meanwhile writing the novel Catch-22 in his free time. Set on an American overseas air base during the Second World War, the novel conveys a sense of the author’s own wartime experience, more specifically his fears about dying in battle.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Takes Place

Italy in World War II

In the novel Yossarian and his bombardment group live on an island off Italy’s coast. Although they continually attack the Italian mainland, they also visit the city of Rome during their vacation leave. Such unusual circumstances were the result of Italy’s unique position during World War II, which resulted from events that occurred in the preceding decades.

After the First World War, Italy experienced social and economic distress. Industrially, it lagged behind most Westernized countries, while an expanding population drained its resources. Politically, various groups vied for control of the country. In this unstable climate, Italy’s Socialist Party rose to great power. Promising aid to the worker and an end to civil distress, the Socialists gained a loyal following.

The wealthier elements of Italian society feared that the Socialists and other leftist groups might cause a revolution and appropriate their assets. Given this situation, Benito Mussolini, a former Socialist, created a political group, Fascio de Combattiment (Combat Band), better known as the Fascists. Mussolini’s group opposed the strikes and factory occupations supported by Socialists and trade unions. Violent confrontations between the groups ensued, with Mussolini’s forces gaining a certain amount of popular support for opposing the disruptions of the leftists. Mussolini’s power grew. On October 28, 1922, he and his supporters conducted the “March on Rome,” a show of strength by several thousand Fascists. Following this display of solidarity, Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel III named Mussolini as premier. By 1925 Mussolini ruled the nation as dictator—the king became little more than a figurehead.

Mussolini’s fascist government favored strict federal control of labor and industry. The dictator maintained his power through the use of his squadristi, a black-shirted band of armed police, and any political opposition was ruthlessly suppressed. The press and radio also came under state control, and with this Mussolini now wielded the powerful weapon of propaganda. Despite his heavy-handed control of the country, many viewed his rule as beneficial. In time, he instigated several public works projects, revitalized the Italian military, and most importantly, put an end to the civil distress. Italy underwent radical transformations because of Mussolini’s economic and social policies, from the wiring of much of the country for electricity, to the secure establishment of automobile and silk manufacturing, to the construction of a sizeable network of highways for transportation. Many of Italy’s youths, workers, and employers organized into groups designed to show support for II Duce, the leader.

Once Italy regained its political and economic footing, Mussolini embarked on several military campaigns. Between the years of 1935 and 1945, Italy was engaged in constant warfare. In 1936 it invaded and conquered Ethiopia. Later that year, Mussolini sent troops to aid Francisco Franco, a like-minded fascist, in overthrowing Spain’s government during the Spanish Civil War. Also in 1936, Mussolini signed an agreement with German leader Adolf Hitler that outlined a common foreign policy; their alliance became known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France immediately retaliated by declaring war on Germany, and World War II commenced. While Italy did not enter the war for some time, on June 11, 1940, Mussolini officially pledged his nation’s alliance with Germany. Italian troops began fighting on the French border, helping Germany to defeat France by June 22, 1940. Soon other war fronts opened. Mussolini and his government sent troops to Africa, Egypt, and Greece. Yet Italy found itself ill-prepared for war, both economically and strategically. It lost several important campaigns, and on July 10, 1943, the Allied Forces of the United States and Great Britain invaded the island of Sicily, the southernmost area of Italy. On July 19, during Mussolini’s meeting with Hitler, reports arrived about the Allied attack on Rome. By this time, factions of Mussolini’s own party wanted him overthrown. On July 25, King Victor Emmanuel III summoned Mussolini to the royal palace, dismissed him from office, and had him arrested and taken to a police station. German paratroopers eventually rescued Mussolini, September 13, from a hotel atop the Gran Sasso d’ltalia—the highest peak in the Abruzzi Apennines mountains. Although Hitler insisted that he establish a separate government in the German-occupied north of Italy, Mussolini was disillusioned by this time and did not take an active role in ruling the area. The “Fascist Republican Government” amounted to little more than a puppet regime controlled by Hitler.

Italian businessmen and workers, disillusioned by Mussolini’s rule, had meanwhile formed their own Committee of Liberation (CLN) and a new government was formed to replace Mussolini. On September 8, 1943, the government signed an armistice with the Allies, and in October declared war on Germany. The Germans, however, still controlled the northern part of the country and Italy now found itself divided. By the time that the novel’s character Yossarian and his combat crew entered the war, Italy had largely withdrawn from the war and Germany still occupied portions of the country. Toward the end of April 1945, while attempting to flee to Switzerland, Mussolini was captured by members of the Italian resistance, who executed him on April 28. Although the war with Germany ended on May 7, 1945, the Allies would continue to occupy Italy until a peace treaty with the country was finally signed in 1947.

Military bombers

During World War II, aircraft played a crucial part in wartime strategy. Bombing enemy targets in efforts to interrupt military supply lines or to prepare for invasions by ground troops gave the combatants’ air forces a dominant place in a major war for the first time in history. Ill-prepared at the start of the war, the United States Army Air Force quickly developed a powerful array of aircraft capable of carrying bomb loads. Fighter bombers served double purposes. This type of bomber was armed for air combat against enemy aircraft and was also designed to carry bombs—most often suspended from the wings—that could be dropped in support of ground troops. A second type of military bomber plane was the dedicated bomber. Although these aircraft carried machine guns for their own defense, they served primarily as carriers of bombs that the crew would drop on military targets. Thousands of dedicated bombers were used in raids on targets in Europe in preparation for the Allied invasion of the continent.

American aircraft companies built twin-engine and four-engine dedicated bombers with very different flight ranges, bomb capacities, and crew demands. By far the greatest number of raids in Europe involved the B-17, or Flying Fortress bomber. Carrying a crew of ten and a bomb load of 5,000 pounds, this four-engine plane was capable of flying to any target in Europe and returning to bases in Great Britain. The B-24, another four-engine bomber, had an even greater bomb capacity and longer range. Some B-24s were used successfully in Europe, but its long range made the B-24 even more popular in the Pacific.

America also made use of two-engine bombers with crews of two to four members. Chief among these were the B-25, known also as the Mitchell bomber, and the B-26, sometimes called the Flying Cigar. These planes were mostly used to reach short-range targets and to prepare the way for ground-troop penetrations. Included in the typical crew were a pilot, a co-pilot, and a bombardier. The pilot and co-pilot steered the plane toward its destination and through any enemy fire, or “flak.” Proving their mettle, the B-25s gained fame early in America’s participation in the war. On April 18, 1942, as Japanese forces were capturing one after another of the Allied bases in the Pacific Islands, General James Doolittle commanded a fleet of sixteen B-25s that carried out a dangerous raid to undermine Japanese morale. The sixteen planes were stripped of every unnecessary item, crammed with gasoline, and packed with their full bomb loads. When compared with the B-17s, the B-25s had a limited range. Their mission to bomb Japan’s capital city, Tokyo, was therefore a one-way flight. Bombers flew from an aircraft carrier drawn as near to Japan as possible and, after hitting their targets, flew the short distance onward to land in China. The success of this raid demonstrated the value of the B-25s and rattled Japan (whose military leaders had believed their country was unreachable by the Allies). Later, when the Allies invaded Italy, bombers of this variety were used in Europe to support ground troops and disrupt enemy supply lines. It is in Italy that the novel’s main character, Yossarian, mans a B-25.

Life in the combat crew

Yossarian’s air base in the novel lies on the island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea. While the island itself actually exists, as Heller points out, “it is very small and obviously could not accommodate all of the actions described” (Heller, Catch-22 epigraph). A typical U.S. Army Air Force station usually contained a few thousand men. Among the personnel were combat crews and officers as well as support staff.

The enlisted men and officers had plenty of idle time to kill between combat flights. Most bases attempted to maintain some semblance of life back home. Radios provided an important connection for the homesick personnel, and programs such as the British Broadcasting Company and the Allied Forces Network offered a full range of music and news. Some stations could even pick up Germany’s English-language broadcasts. While all of these broadcasts were designed with propagandist intent, they nonetheless served to boost morale. In addition to the radio entertainment, the bases also provided movies and alcohol as diversions for the men. They seemed to crave anything that would keep their minds off the inevitable next mission.

The Novel in Focus

The plot

Catch-22 focuses essentially on an American Army Air Forces bombardier and his attempt to survive the combat and general mayhem of World War II. Yossarian is stationed with the rest of his squadron on the island of Pianosa, just off the Italian coast. No newcomer to the war effort, Yossarian yearns for nothing more than to complete his string of forty-five combat missions and to return home safely in one piece. Unfortunately for the young bombardier, the officer in command, Colonel Cathcart, keeps raising the number of requisite missions for all his bombardiers in an attempt to earn a promotion for himself.

Yossarian did not enter into the war a coward. Like most new arrivals, he flew with brash confidence and patriotism. His excellent marksmanship earned him a position aboard the lead plane in the combat formation. With each flight, however, he feels his luck slipping bit by bit. Finally one event awakens Yossarian to the horrors of war and shakes his steel reserve. During a somewhat routine mission, Yossarian’s plane suffers heavy flak from antiaircraft forces. While Yossarian escapes without bodily harm, his psyche undergoes a tremendous shock. After the initial confusion of combat dissipates, Yossarian discovers that the bombardier, Snowden, has been hit by antiaircraft fire from the ground, which entered the plane through the bomb-bay doors. He attempts to stabilize Snowden, administering first aid and offering gentle words of encouragement. After tying a tourniquet on the man’s leg, Yossarian believes that the immediate danger to Snowden’s life has been removed. When he opens the man’s flak suit, however, he is greeted by Snowden’s entrails spilling out onto the floor. Aware that Snowden has suffered fatal injuries, Yossarian can only mumble vague platitudes and watch as the young man slowly dies. The macabre scene forever alters Yossarian’s attitude toward combat.

For his remaining time in the army, Yossarian focuses his attention on avoiding death at all costs. He checks himself into the infirmary with phantom diseases, refuses to fly, and at one point even dares to be absent without leave. He pleads with the base physician, Doc Daneeka, in an effort to be excused from combat on the basis of mental instability. Doc Daneeka informs him that according to army regulations, any man judged crazy must be grounded from further flight. As part of the rule, however, a man wishing to be grounded must ask the physician for the official decision. When Yossarian asks, “And then you can ground him?” (Catch-22, p. 40), however, Doc Daneeka replies in the negative. The doctor explains that the rule involves a catch, Catch-22: Anyone desiring to avoid combat duty is deemed not crazy. The stipulation states that “a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that [are] real and immediate [is] the process of a rational mind” (Catch-22, p. 40). This cyclical logic keeps Yossarian from realizing his wish.

This Catch-22 represents Yossarian’s overall Air Force experience. Actions do not necessarily proceed from reason, and all logical assertions seem to negate themselves. The words and actions of commanding officers appear to possess no rationale. For instance, Colonel Cathcart insists that his men drop their bombs in tight patterns so as to create impressive aerial photographs. When someone points out that these tight patterns often cause bombers to miss their targets, the colonel dismisses the comment as irrelevant. In the mixed-up world in which Catch-22 prevails, dead men remain “alive” because no one will remove them from the roster. Likewise, live men are considered dead when someone lists them incorrectly on a roster.

Yossarian begins to doubt his ability to escape from such mayhem. He becomes convinced that his friend and the role-model for his calculatedly erratic behavior, Orr, has downed his own plane so that he could disappear from the fighting. Orr, Yossarian concludes, managed to escape. Ultimately Yossarian concludes that there’s no harm in running away to save one’s own life. The close of the novel follows Yossarian as he departs into the unknown. One is certain only of his intent to carve out a future that carries him far from the war.

Catch-22 as a military satire

World War II marked an important turning point for Americans. While the First World War inspired a patriotic fervor on the home front, by the 1940s Americans took a more cynical approach. They saw that the first international conflict had settled few political grievances. In addition, the U.S. was emerging from the difficult years of the Great Depression. Such a cultural climate naturally bred a more critical view of the military. Reflecting this mood were other novels set during wartime, such as Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, (also covered in Literature and Its Times), that took a serious approach to the subject of combat. Heller’s novel, in contrast, employs a more comedic manner to convey disdain for the army.

THE TITLE

The reader is meant to assume that “Catch-22” refers to an actual military code. In actuality, the phrase is an invention of the author’s own mind. Originally Heller intended to title his novel Catch-18. Because another writer, Leon Uris, had recently published a novel called Mila 18, Heller’s editor suggested changing the title to Catch-22. In this manner, he reasoned, they were sure to avoid public confusion. Heller responded readily to the suggestion. He felt that the new title was even more suitable for such a code. The expression “Catch-22” found its way into the American vocabulary, signifying a dilemma whose alternatives make no sense or are logically impossible because they cancel each other out.

The novel’s most obvious stab at the military stems from the repetition that the author employs. With his rhetoric, and even his plot structure, Heller conveys the image of a convoluted, bureaucratic system of waste. He tells Yossarian’s story through a series of flashbacks and memories. Events pile on top of one another so that the readers must sort through the plot on their own. In fact, the moment of Snowden’s death, which so shapes Yossarian’s view of military service, does not come into full light until the end of the novel. A sense of repetition is created through small details throughout the novel. Characters such as Giuseppe, a wounded man in the hospital, see things in double. Yossarian and his crew drop two sets of bombs over Ferrara. The character Major Major Major Major holds a name that’s twice doubled. At times, not even this doubling provides enough emphasis on the redundancy of military life. The novel describes certain tasks as being performed ad infinitum. Yossarian’s roommate, Orr, works on his stove in such a methodical and endless fashion that Yossarian almost loses his senses. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen continually digs and fills holes. Even the title of the novel, Catch-22, uses a repetitive number.

Sources

Joseph Heller created Yossarian’s World War II experiences based on his own memories. In 1942, at the age of nineteen, Heller enlisted in the Army Air Corps for combat in Corsica. He became a member of the 488th Squadron, 340th Bombardment Group, 12th Air Force. By the time he was discharged in 1945, Heller had earned the rank of first lieutenant and possessed an Air Medal as well as a Presidential Unit Citation.

Like Yossarian, Heller entered the war seemingly prepared and fearless. Propagandistic war movies had inspired him to enlist without waiting to be drafted. As a gunner, he flew sixty combat missions in a B-25 over Italy and France. On his thirty-seventh mission, over Avignon, France, an event occurred that would alter his attitude on subsequent flights. Heavy flak caused Heller to believe that a part of his plane had exploded. For the remainder of the mission he feared for his life. Having thus been introduced to his own mortality in the face of war, Heller flew the rest of his missions under the pressure of his own barely restrained terror. He vowed that if he survived the war, he would never fly again. At the end of his combat duty, Heller returned to the United States by ship as if to prove his point.

During his time overseas, Heller kept a journal of his missions. He also composed short fictional pieces based on his experiences. His first short story, “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” saw publication in a special military issue of Story magazine in 1945. During that same year, Heller began working on the idea of a war novel. Although he did not actually begin serious work on Catch-22 until some ten years later, he maintained his original conception of the work. Heller had no desire to render a factual account of World War II. Rather, he wished to convey his own fear, primarily that of dying in combat. Like his main character, Heller had struggled with the horrors of war, and though he exited a survivor, the memories of the fear burned vividly inside him.

Events in History at the Time the Novel Was Written

The Air Force of the Korean War

Although Heller’s novel centers around the trials of aerial combat during World War II, he did not begin writing his book until 1956. By this time, the United States had entered and exited yet another conflict, the war in Korea. As revealed, Heller never intended to compose a historically accurate work; rather he wanted to convey a sense of his own experience in war and his own fear of dying in combat. As such, the author “deliberately seeded the book with anachronisms like loyalty oaths, helicopters, IBM machines” (Heller in Ruderman, p. 19) that would be true for the later Korean War, but not for World War II. The helicopter, for instance, although used in a limited rescue capacity during World War II, did not play an armed combat role in the military until the Korean War.

By the time of the publication of Catch-22, the air force had changed considerably. Following World War II, the military organization found it-self in a paradoxical state. While tactical aviation had been honed to near perfection, the advent of the atom bomb seemed to make the very need for air combat pointless. After all, why risk the lives of hundreds of men in the sky when one bomb could annihilate an entire enemy city? This, along with several other factors, helped curtail the size of the tactical forces. In the postwar years, the budget for the U.S. Army Air Force shrank drastically. Although the commanders had planned for a postwar establishment of approximately seventy bombardment groups, they attained only forty-five because of budget restraints. Moreover, the purpose of these groups was to develop an intercontinental force capable of delivering atomic weaponry. In other words, a tactical force would engage its services only if an atomic attack failed to defeat the enemy. World War II had also brought with it the invention of the jet engine. By the time of the Korean War, it had become standard in aircraft. While planes could now fly at speeds up to 200 miles per hour faster than before, they also cost more to manufacture and maintain. Taken separately, each of these factors probably would not have had a great impact on the U.S. Army Air Force. When combined, however, these elements resulted in the tactical force no longer dominating the sky the way it once had in the U.S. military.

The Red Scare

In the novel, Captain Black, outraged at another soldier’s promotion over himself, institutes the practice of loyalty oaths. Captain Black hopes to expose the promoted soldier, Major Major, as an insurgent. The captain forces everyone but Major Major to repeatedly swear loyalty to his country and the flag. The situation escalates out of control until the men can barely use the latrine without a pledge of support. Heller admits that the loyalty oaths presented in his novel come not from the era of World War II, but instead from the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

McCarthyism refers to the accusations of communism and anti-American activities against a variety of individuals and groups that spread throughout the United States during the 1950s. The name derives from Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin who instigated a virtual witch-hunt for American communists. Following World War II, relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. degenerated in their competition for international leadership. The communist takeovers in Czechoslovakia and China during the late 1940s began what became known as the “Red Scare” (so named for the color of the Soviet flag and the color that represented international communism before the Russian Revolution). Tensions mounted when the U.S.S.R. developed its own nuclear weaponry and subsequently provided it to the communist government in North Korea. When North Korea invaded the South, the United States found itself forced into the position of world protector of democracy. While combating communist forces abroad, the United States government also began investigations into its own ranks.

Fear of espionage ran rampant throughout America. A Gallup poll of June 1946 showed that 57 percent of the polled Americans suspected that a “great many” communists resided in the United States. Another 28 percent felt that a “few” communists probably called America home (Fried, p. 60). International activities had fueled these fires of suspicion. In September of 1945, Igor Gouzenko, a clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada, sought Canadian asylum. An investigation into his case unveiled a Soviet spy ring. Eventually the Gouzenko case exposed the German refugee scientist, Klaus Fuchs, who had worked with the Soviets to spy on the United States’s Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. The Fuchs trial, in turn, led to the arrests of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two Americans accused of collaborating with the spy ring. Following a lengthy trial, in 1953 the Rosenbergs became the first Americans executed for espionage. Hitting even closer to home, however, Gouzenko insisted that an aide to the American Secretary of State was a Soviet agent. This began a virtual panic within the governmental ranks.

On March 22, 1947, President Harry S. Truman established the loyalty program. Following investigations made by federal agencies, accused employees of the U.S. government were brought forward for hearings. The accused faced dismissal on “reasonable grounds... for belief that the person involved [was] disloyal to the Government of the United States” (Goodman in Fried, p. 68). Such grounds included sabotage, espionage, treason, or affiliation with a “subversive” group. While most historians acknowledge that the United States government was probably not home to a host of Soviet spies within its ranks, the loyalty program fueled a public anticommunist passion that complemented the president’s foreign policy. In his sarcastic tribute to this era, Heller names his loyalty oath promoter “Captain Black,” referring to the secret “blacklists” of the 1950s that fingered supposed communist sympathizers. Eventually, the Red Scare dissipated, yet it left innumerable scars on those blacklisted members of the government and the individual artists who had been unjustly accused.

Reception

When first released for publication, Catch-22 met with mixed reviews. The New York Times called it both “a dazzling performance” and one that was “gasping for want of craft and sensibility” (New York Times Book Review in Ruderman, p. 20). This dual-edged reception seemed to set the standard for the book. Although Catch-22 sold thirty-two thousand copies in one year, Heller himself noted that the novel fulfilled his every fantasy except for two. The novel never made him a rich man, and it never sold enough copies in one week to make it onto the New York Times bestseller list. Released in paperback in 1962, however, the novel’s fortune changed. It became an instant hit, selling over 2 million copies in one year. Readers regarded Catch-22 as a protest novel to the Vietnam War, and the nonconformists and antiwar protesters of the decade embraced it. In fact, many now refer to Catch-22 as “the American counter-culture bible of the 1960s” (Ruderman, p. 20).