The Literature Book

276

See also: The Crying of Lot 49 290 ■ Slaughterhouse-Five 291 ■

American Psycho 313

W

ith a fascination for the

morbid and the taboo,

black humor uses farce

to make light of controversial or

serious issues. Such humor often

comes from despair or horror and

frequently highlights the futility

of life. Many dark, satirical novels

came out of the US in the latter half

of the 20th century, when the

nation assumed leadership of the

West after the shattering of Europe

through two world wars, and the

onset of the Cold War nuclear age.

The madness of sanity

Catch-22, the satirical novel by

American Joseph Heller (1923–99),

is set in World War II, although the

book can be read as a commentary

on the ongoing Vietnam War.

It follows the exploits of Captain

Yossarian and his fellow airmen,

who serve on bombing missions.

Unmoved by patriotism, Yossarian

is furious that his life is at risk;

convinced he is surrounded by

crazed idiots, he tries to avoid his

missions by faking illness. Yet he

and his comrades are in a “Catch-22”

situation (which refers to a military

code of practice): they can apply for

discharge on the grounds of insanity,

but the very process of claiming

madness using the correct protocol

proves their sanity and so they

must continue to fly.

The madness of war so clearly

seen by Yossarian is underscored

through Heller’s use of paradox,

absurdity, and the kind of circular

reasoning exemplifed by Catch-22

itself. True to the conventions of

black humor, the novel is by turns

bleak, hilarious, and tragic. ■

HE HAD DECIDED TO

LIVE FOREVER OR DIE

IN THE ATTEMPT

CATCH-22 (1961), JOSEPH HELLER

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

American black humor

BEFORE

1939 The Day of the Locust by

Nathanael West satirizes the

grotesque vanity of Hollywood

and its hangers-on during the

Great Depression.

1959 Philip Roth’s fiction

collection Goodbye, Columbus

humorously deals with the

dark or taboo side of subjects

such as sex, religion, and

cultural assimilation.

AFTER

1966 Thomas Pynchon’s The

Crying of Lot 49 explores the

failure of communication and

the absurd and disordered

nature of the world.

1969 The search for meaning

in increasingly fractured times

is satirized in Kurt Vonnegut’s

Slaughterhouse-Five, inspired

by the author’s experience of

the firebombing of Dresden

and the absurdity of war.

Anything worth

dying for ... is certainly

worth living for.

Catch-22

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