Fiction Analysis of Passage From

¶ … Fiction

Analysis of passage from Catch-22, by Joseph Heller (Originally published in 1955. New York: Dell Publishing, Inc., 1963)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is set during World War II, in an asylum for soldiers. This location immediately raises the question of what it means to be sane or insane, in an insane situation world. The entire world is engaged in the crazy and barbaric, state-approved act of murdering people in battle. The work of a soldier seems lunatic, yet it is supposed to be 'sane' to be a soldier. Instead of a glorified vision of war, Heller portrays the absurdities inherent in military bureaucracy when fighting other human beings. Although World War II is often called a 'good war,' Heller questions this idea, implying that there are no good wars. There is insanity behind the organization and leadership of all wars, regardless of who is participating. The passage is rendered with deadpan irony, beginning with the first sentence that the main character Yossarian, has decided to "spend the rest of the war in the hospital."

There is a sense of foreboding, when it is revealed that Yossarian has intentionally or unintentionally shut off contact with his family and friends back home, as he has written letters to everyone he knew saying that he is being set off on a dangerous mission without saying when he will be back. This sounds glorious, although Yossarian's job is anything but -- Yossarian's main task in the hospital is that of a censor. He monitors the letters written by the patients for sensitive information. However, there is little rhyme or reason behind what is classified as truly sensitive information. The totalitarian aspect of his censorious duty, inherent to the business of war, is reflected in Heller's language: "Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective. The next day he made war on articles." The humorous, absurd, and arbitrary nature of censorship is reflected in Yossarian's lack of care and sense of responsibility as he "reached a much higher plane of creativity the following day when he blacked out everything in the letters but a, an, and the." The idea that his work can be 'creative' in his mind, although he is annihilating the creative acts of other soldiers is bitterly but humorously ironic.

Yossarian sees himself as a literary critic, as he reflects upon his work: "that erected more dynamic intralinear tensions, he felt, and in just about every case left a message far more universal." He arrogantly sees himself as improving upon the real nature of these personal documents, and eventually his impositions upon the letters do not even have the pretense of protecting sensitive information: "Soon he was proscribing parts of salutations and signatures and leaving the text untouched." He takes on the name of the group chaplain when signing a romantic letter to a woman, obliterating the real serviceman's identity in kind of a dirty joke. Washington Irving, the American satirist is invoked in the passage when Yossarian signs Washington's name, as if the act of military censorship is a kind of all-American satire.

Censorship itself portrayed as an act of metaphorical wartime destruction, a carpet-bombing of information: "When he had exhausted all possibilities in the letters, he began attacking the names and addresses on the envelopes, obliterating whole homes and streets, annihilating entire metropolises with careless flicks of his wrist as though he were God." Despite this God-like language, Yossarian does not really take his work seriously, in fact it is said: "Most letters he didn't read at all." Even when he is supposed to be taken to task for censoring the envelopes, which he is not supposed to do, the CID man sent to investigate, is very easy to spot, despite his 'disguise' as a patient. This highlights the incompetence of those in authority, as well as their paranoia.

Analysis of passage from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1951; rpt. 1971), pp.3-5

Carson McCullers' short story "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" is set in a town that is immediately established as remote, rural, and Southern: it is located near a cotton mill, there are peach trees all over the area, and there is only a single church. Even the buses are three miles away, which suggest the stranded and isolated nature of the residents. The main street is only two miles long, and there is "nothing whatsoever to do" during the long, hot summers. Even the nearest train stop (the significantly named 'Society' City) is far away. The largest building looks lonely and is boarded up completely. This large building, half-painted and left unfinished becomes a kind of metaphor for the town, as well as the woman who ran the cafe that used to exist within its walls.

The decrepit state of the building foreshadows what will happen over the course of the rest of the story, given that it is said to have been owned by a woman who was once very rich. The cafe used to be the most exciting thing in this very unexciting town. "Miss Amelia inherited the building from her father, and it was a store that carried mostly feed, guano, and staples such as meal and snuff. Miss Amelia was rich. In addition to the store she operated a still three miles back in the swamp, and ran out the best liquor in the county." This immediately causes the reader to wonder what happened to the building, to the cafe, and to Miss Amelia's wealth.

Miss Amelia, obviously the figure who hides in the house and sometimes looks down at the street with her crossed eyes also emerges as a question, as she is said to be "a dark, tall woman with bones and muscles like a man. Her hair was cut short and brushed back from the forehead, and there was about her sunburned face a tense, haggard quality." She sounds strong, capable, and masculine. Another aspect of foreshadowing is the fact that mysteriously, Miss Amelia was married for ten days, but this marriage was event "unlike any other marriage ever contracted in this county." What is it about this marriage that turned Miss Amelia into the "face" that "will look down on the town… a face like the terrible dim faces known in dreams -- sexless and white, with two gray crossed eyes which are turned inward so sharply that they seem to be exchanging with each other one long and secret gaze of grief." And what has made the building and the town so miserable?