Style and organization of Catch-22

The Novel “Catch-22,” by Joseph Heller, is a very different novel in a structural, organizational, and stylistic sense. Upon beginning the novel, I became slightly confused because I could not seem to find an underlying plot or any logical flow to the novel. The novel is organized chapter by chapter, each dedicated to a different person. Catch-22 introduces its characters through the different chapters and by intertwining the characters together through different incidences relating to the main character of the presented chapter. It consequently appears to be a mixed-up string of disjointed experiences. This is true mainly because Catch-22 is not structured in a chronological fashion. As a result, I have found that I need to keep a close focus on all of the characters and their individual descriptions, such as Appleby, who is referred to as having “flies in his eyes,” in order to maintain a clear sense of the novel and its messages and themes presented by Yossarian. Catch-22’s lack of chronology forces the novel to organize itself in different more thought provoking ways. The reader has to put every incident and story into memory because Yossarian, more often than not, will bring it up again and relate it to another character and a story that character’s own. Therefore, the novel can be seen as being organized based on the combination and relationship between different scenes. The union between scenes can be used to reveal Yossarian’s perspectives on all the different characters, the motivations of the war, the treatment of the war by the men, and patriotism. Although every chapter seems like a different unrelated episode from the chapter before, when the reader puts the novel together as a whole there is gradual development in the events. Everything seems to build on something that occurred previously. An example of how this graduation of events occurs is the repeated increase in the number of missions needed in order to be discharged from the war. The number continually gets higher and higher allowing for more to take place and more psychological developments; which Heller ends up finding a way to ultimately tie together in one way or another. The events of the novel allow for Heller to take the novel deeper through his descriptive language and his satirical style of writing. He makes commentaries on all aspects within the novel through his satire, sarcasm, and caricatures. He also builds on the novel through his descriptive and metaphorical language, which he used to describe the physical beauty within the novel. This bounces right back off with his sarcastic view of the reason why he is in a beautiful place, the war. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is very original in its style and organization which I believe makes it a more interesting and engaging piece of literature. (495).

Tragically Happy Waltz

"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.




I think in “My Papa’s Waltz,” Theodore Roethke uses a combination of a definite control of tone as well as a specific portrayal of the poem’s speaker to enhance the reader’s understanding of the poem and its meaning. The poem can be interpreted in two main different ways. The first being the idea that the speaker is disturbed remembering his painful childhood with a drunken father. The second interpretation is the idea that the speaker is remembering a happy, playful scene from growing up with his father. I personally feel that the poem should be understood through both interpretations as I think the speaker portrays a tragically happy memory of his childhood.

The language of Roethke’s poem can be seen as a proponent of both interpretations of “My Papa’s Waltz.” Phrases and words such as “whiskey on your breath,” “hung on like death,” “battered,” “my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself,” and “scraped” all stress the boys bitter and resentful memories of his father. The wording leads the reader to assume that there was darkness and despair living in the house. However, the reader can also infer from phrasing such as “waltzing,” “romped,” and “clinging” that underneath the flaws of the family they was a loving relationship between the boy and his father. This makes the poem connect more to its readers because the readers become sympathetic toward the boy and want to find the good in the father. In some cases, it may become easy for the reader to look past the father drunkenly stumbling and scraping his son’s ear and to instead see the father’s good intentions in dancing with his son at the end of the day.

I think the key lines of “My Papa’s Waltz” are the final two, “Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” These two lines emphasize the subject of the poem, a moment frozen in time, in the speaker’s memory, of a meaningful dance or waltz between the boy and his father. The lines also suggest the reasoning behind my belief that the poem is about a tragically happy memory. Although Roethke uses clear language to stress the speaker’s critical view of his father, he also uses vivid language, such as the word “clinging,” to stress the speaker’s undeniable love for his father. The poem is defined by the portrayal of the speaker as an honest, loving, and desperate believer in his father as well as by the tone placed upon the father through the language of the poem and the tone placed upon the hurtfulness of an event that should be one of pure joy and freedom. Dance is supposed to be free expression but for the young boy it encompasses not just a chance to play with his father in the freedom of his love, as it solely should, but also it embodies the boy’s unfortunate existence in a quite possibly broken home while yearning for his father’s sober attention.

Theodore Roethke intentionally displays the speaker in a sympathetic light, not by describing him, but rather by describing the treatment he receives from his father. This makes the poem interesting because the tone and the portrayal of the speaker take on a deeper meaning because they become the backbone of a poem that attempts to find the good in a strained but caring relationship of a father and son. The bond of a father and son should be one of the most meaningful relationships in any mans life. It is clear that the speaker knows this and feels robbed in his own life because he was denied a truly devoted relationship with his father.(613).