Catch-22

Catch-22 In his World War II novel, Catch-22, Joseph Heller satirizes a variety of bureaucrats and the military-industrial complex. In this story the protagonist is Captain Joseph Yossarian, a World War II bombardier, who is being stationed on the island of Pisona. He is an individualist who seeks to protect his own life and tries various means to extricate himself from further missions because he hates the war. Clevinger is a member of Yossarian’s squadron who constantly argues with Yossarian that people must obey their institutions and fight the war. Colonel Cathcart attempts to become a general by volunteering his squadrons for the most dangerous missions possible and by constantly raising the number of missions that the men must fly to obtain leave. Lieutenant Nately is one of Yossarian’s colleagues who comes from a wealthy family and proposes matrimony to a whore he meets during the war. Yossarian and every single other member of the squadron we are introduced to in the novel are crazy in their own way, but despite this they are unable to be grounded because of a military clause which lends the novel its title. Pilots, bombardiers and navigators can only gain catch-22, yossarian, war, missions, yossarian’s, novel, fly, being, because, story, squadron, people, heller, cannot, avoid, against, whore, pretends, must, men, joseph, during, despite, death, book, world, using, turns, time, terrible, states, snowden, several, sane, reader, protests, own, out, one, officers, nately’s, nately, mudd, mission, military, member, meets, man, killed, keeps