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On the one hand, in its use of devices from Greek drama and of one of the chief classical conventions, the descent or night journey, Catch-22 identifies itself with the classics. On the other hand, in its allusions or settings from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky (as well as Camus and Tolstoy), in its use of bureaucracy as a metaphor, and in its insistence on casting off sentimentality, the novel falls into the existential tradition. |
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With the classical tradition it shares a vision of a hero developed through error, suffering, and enlightenment. With the existential tradition it shares a spiritual view of a man who finds or loses himself in the unpremeditated "leap" of allegiance to something higher (or lower) than himself. |
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A reader familiar with these traditions will be better able to read Catch-22; and, conversely, a reader of Catch-22 is led back to these traditions. |
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1. Describe in detail the progression of Yossarian from escapism to courage and responsibility. |
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2. Does the chaplain have a function in the novel? How does he relate to the men, the issues, and himself? |
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3. What relation does the novel suggest exists between vice and boredom? How does it account for this boredom? |
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4. What does the novel portray as the consequences of self-protection? of risk? |
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5. What role does time play in both the structure and the themes of the novel? |
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6. Discuss Pianosa both as setting and as metaphor. |
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7. Explain how the hospital in Pianosa and the apartment in Rome function in the novel. |
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8. Why does Major — de Coverly disappear from the novel midway in its course? |
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9. Discuss the role played by literary allusion in the novel. |
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10. Trace the development of M&M Enterprises and its effect on the lives of the men. |
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11. Describe one of the repeated events in the novel and indicate what this repetition contributes to plot and theme. |
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12. What function is fulfilled by the presence of many characters named only by description (for example, the soldier in white, the maid in the lime-colored panties)? |
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13. Describe how humor and terror, comedy and tragedy are interwoven in the novel. |
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