Catch 22 Essay, Research Paper

The Dehumanization of Man

Catch 22, which was written by Joseph Heller in 1961, is an accurate zeitgeist novel that portrayed the feeling of the counter culture in the United States that was coinciding with events such as the Korean and Vietnamese Wars. Catch 22 takes place in Italy during World War II and the novel follows around the main character, Yossarian, who is as sane as one can be situated in an insane world. While Yossarian is in Italy, Catch 22 also manages to act as a social commentary on American life, the novel rips apart what many people held sacred during the time period that the book was written. Catch 22 contains many different characters that are used to represent different aspects of human life. The fact that the novel occurs in the military helps aid the books reoccurring theme of dehumanization. Military officials hold human lives in their hands, as a result of this the actual men enlisted in the military are striped of many basic human rights, primarily freedom of choice. Catch 22 demonstrates the ways that human beings are devalued and how the supremacy of the individual is ignored due to the decisions of uncaring authority figures, thus dehumanizing mankind.

The Army controls all aspects of human life; they own the bodies and the minds of enlisted men, treating them as nothing more then material objects. The military leaders in Catch 22 demonstrate perfectly how easy it is to take things too far. When one joins the military the individual aspect of a person ceases to exist, where one once had complete control over their actions, the military soon gains control of everything one does. If a commanding officer makes a mistake everyone suffers, however, the military believes that it is better to have one person in charge of everyone, then to have people doing what they believe to be correct, There s no hope left. And all because I left them free to make their own decisions. That should teach me a lesson about discipline the next time I try something like this (275). The mind is not the only part of a human that the military gains control of, a person actually losses their physical body upon joining the military. Catch 22 demonstrates how body parts themselves no longer belong to the person, but to the government, I suppose you just don t care if you loose your leg or not, do you? It s my leg. It certainly is not your leg! Nurse Cramer retorted. That leg belongs to the U.S. government. It s no different then a gear or a bed pan. The Army has invested a lot of money to make you an airplane pilot, you ve no right to disobey doctor s orders (302). The Army takes dehumanization to the point where people have nothing that belongs to them; they loose everything including such basic belongings such as their mind and body.

While one form of dehumanization is ownership of the mind and body, the Army displays another form through its lack of emotion and the way it treats human life the same as one would treat a material object. People with higher ranks in the military are similar to little kids playing with their toys. They treat war as though it is game, playing the role of god for the men doing the actual fighting. Without coming to the realization that they are not playing a game, but that they are dealing with human lives, men such as Colonel Cathcart demote human life to a material possession, a possession that should not belong to them in the first place. Although the men know that it will eventually mean their death if they continue to obey orders from above, they are then given more orders to continue doing their jobs, I m going to be killed at Bologna we re all going to be killed. Then you ll just have to be killed, replied ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen. Why can t you just be fatalist about it the way I am? If you re destined to be killed over Bologna, then you re going to be killed, so you might just as well go out and die like a man (132-33). As far as the military is concerned, a dead man is a dead man, and it does not matter the reason for death, who it is that died, or how many more people will die, As far as we re concerned one dying boy is just as good as any other, or just as bad (192). The military plays games with people s lives. They play the role of God by expecting people to die when they ask them to die, or continue living because they ask them to live. They do not treat people the way humans should be treated, instead they act as though all people are material objects, and not living beings.

Along with controlling peoples lives and controlling peoples deaths, the military also prevents individuals from emerging, this creates yet another way to dehumanize mankind. One of the military s fundamental goals is to create a group of people without individual characteristics; this is done to make everyone similar and to form a group of people all without identities. It is necessary for the military to have unity, if there is not unity in the military then the individual begins to overpower what benefits the country as a whole. If this happens, it is impossible to fight a war. Because of this the military does everything it can to prevent individuals in the military. When Yossarian stops cooperating with the Army, they are forced to offer him a deal to prevent him from stirring up more problems amongst the men because they know the individual will hurt them. That is the reason the military thrives on people who obey orders and blindly do what they are told, Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who believed in God, Motherhood, and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them, and everybody who knew him liked him (27). People such as Appleby do as they are told, whether it is to die, to fly a mission, or to serve dinner. They do not question authority and have no individual characteristics whatsoever. There could be two hundred different men named Appleby and only one named Yossarian, but Yossarian would still influence more people simply because he is an individual and does not let the Army dehumanize him.

In the novel Catch 22, many different ways that man can be dehumanized are witnessed. The government controls people s actions, their bodies, their minds, their lives, and even their deaths. Commanding Officers in the military play the role of God over their fellow humans all at a cost to maintain power over the people. The only way the Army can continue its dominance of dehumanization is to destroy the individual. The fact that Yossarian does not cooperate with them, and does not allow his individual characteristics to be destroyed helps him prevail in the end.