Catch 22 - Satire

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and the Mediterranean Sea. (Heller) The squadron is thrown thoughtlessly into brutal combat situations and bombing runs on which it is more important for them to capture a good aerial photograph of an explosion than to destroy their target. Their colonels continually raise the number of missions they are required to fly before being sent home so that no one is ever sent home. Heller's satire targets a variety of bureaucrats, the military-industrial complex, and the business ethic and economic arrangements of American society. Humor rising out of the crazy logic of modern warfare hits squarely on the mark. (Hicks 32). The following passage demonstrates the humor and enlightens the reader about the book's title and the major cause of Yossarian's problems: Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. " Is Orr crazy?" "He sure is," Doc Daneeka said. "Can you ground him?" "I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule." "Then why doesn't he ask you to?" ...

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his superiors by bravely volunteering his men for dangerous combat duty whenever he gets the chance. He continually raises the number of combat missions required of the men before they can be sent home. Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder, the mess officer, is the supreme champion of the profit motive and free enterprise. He knows how to buy eggs for 7 cents and to sell them at a profit for 5 cents. He contrives with Axis agents to bomb his own airfield when the Germans make him a reasonable offer: cost plus 6 per cent. He does this because he desperately needs more funds in his misguided quest to corner the Egyptian cotton market. Milo's loyalties lay in general with capitalistic enterprise ...

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