Use of Symbolism in Joseph Heller's Catch-22

Use of Symbolism in Joseph Heller's Catch-22

The clerk sneezed three times in rapid succession and looked at me through watery eyes. "What did you say your name was?" I told him my name and he turned to a towering file cabinet overflowing with papers and brown manila envelopes. After sneezing three times and searching through a drawer, he pulled out a thin folder and laid it on the counter. "Ah," he said in a nasal voice laden with condescension and impatience. "I see you have no experience in our particular area of expertise. Come back when you get some experience." I explained that I was there to get experience. "Well, I don't see how you can find any work with your experience," the clerk groused, peering at me through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. "Federal regulation Catch-22." He sneezed three times. I stared, trying to comprehend the logic of this ineffectual bureaucrat. He wouldn't hire me with my level of experience, but I could only get experience by working at this company. He sneezed three times. There was only one catch, and it was Catch-22.

Catch-22 was written in 1961 as a first novel by Joseph Heller, a former army bombardier who got combat experience in World War II from his base on the island of Corsica. Catch-22 became a classic American novel. Heller went on to write several other novels deriding bureaucracy and the military-industrial complex.

Catch-22 follows the exploits of an Army bombardier during World War II. John Yossarian and his squadron were based on the small island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean. While the plot jumps all over the place in no chronological order, a story emerges. He loses his nerve for fighting when a man on his plane is killed and Yossarian realizes that the war will be ...

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... of Baghdad, and the Sheik of Araby. These amazing facts about Milo seem to imply that he is more than one man. This is supported when Milo gives his syndicate the name M&M Enterprises, implying that it is not a one-man company. These observations led me to put some thought into Milo. I concluded that Milo was meant to symbolize the military-industrial complex that during the 1960s, when the book was written, caught the country in a Catch-22 and held it for decades. The more contracts and power were given to the companies, the more power they had to manipulate the rise and fall of Cold War tensions and continually bloat the military budget. But the companies were needed to combat the threat of Soviet power that hung over the country. There was a catch, and it was Catch-22.

Bibliography

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Dell Publishing Co., Inc, New York. 1961 Edition.