The Absurdity of Circles

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, is about a United States Air Force squadron based on the island of Pianosa, off of the west coast of Italy. The novel follows Captain John Yossarian and some of his fellow airmen, as they try to fulfill their mission requirements so that they can return home, and survive the war at the same time. Unfortunately, their commanding officers raise the mission requirements as soon as most of the airmen reach the previous requirement, keeping the airmen in service longer than they would like to be, and thus putting them in more danger.

Catch-22 and circular thinking control the lives of the airmen of the 256th Squadron. It is the one rule that many of them live by, and the rule that governs whether or not they fly. The rule dictates that a man may ask to be grounded due to reasons of insanity, but if he is capable of asking to be grounded for this reason, then he is actually sane, and has to fly. However, there are other forms of Catch-22 throughout the book. When Milo refuses to deprive Major Major of food, Captain Black says that “This whole program is voluntary Milo--don’t forget that. The men don’t have to sign Piltchard and Wren’s loyalty oath if they don’t want to. But we need you to starve them to death if they don’t. It’s just Catch-22. Don’t you get it? You’re not against Catch-22, are you?” (114). There are no benefits to either side of the decision. The men either starve, or sign an oath saying that they will do as Piltchard and Wren please. Catch-22 and the decision between eating or signing away rights are just two examples of absurdity in this book. Yet another example of this is when Yossarian is in bed with his lover Luciana, where Yossarian exclaims “You won’t marry me because I’m crazy, and you say I’m crazy because I want to marry you?”, to which Luciana replies “Because you say you love me. How can you love a girl who is not a virgin” (160). Luciana and Yossarian are in bed just after having sex, and she says that she can’t marry Yossarian because she isn’t a virgin? The absurdity present in this book astonishes the reader, but also makes sense as the book is intended to be a dark satire of war, and the inner workings of the military as a whole. It is not surprising that the men of the 256th Squadron are incapable of enjoying themselves and returning home when they have such a ridiculous rule keeping them in the air, and other absurdities controlling their free time.