Catch-22: How it relates to The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail explains Thoreau's life from when he was a young adult until later in his life. Throughout the play, he is in a jail cell with Bailey, his cell mate. The setting takes place during the Mexican War. The audience sees his life and witnesses his experiences. The pantomiming actor is supposed act out different scenes in his life. Thoreau hates the war involving America and disagrees with the war effort. His stubbornness gets him into trouble, like getting into jail. The intelligent man believes he knows everything and the audience shows how he received all of this knowledge which was through different events in his life. The play explains transitions and how the setting should look with different nature like looks. This shows the Romanticism aspect of the play, even though it was written during the Modernism era, making this play written at a different time it was depicted.
Catch-22 can relate to each of these elements. The setting takes place during a war, WWII, and the main character, Yossarian, disapproves of the war around him. The audience reading the book experiences the different events in which Yossarian witness while getting his opinion on the matter. He's not particularly stubborn, however, he refuses to accept his involvement in the war and tries to leave as much as possible. Yossarian is not particularly intelligent however he learns things from his colleagues throughout the book. The book describes the setting, relating to Romanticism, and describes the nature. It was written during the Modernism era, but was used for Postmodernism. All of these aspects are similar.

Catch-22: How it relates to Romanticism

Romanticism, the literary movement, expresses a more romantic way to look at the world. Authors begin to commune with nature during this time period and express, through their literature works, the nature of the world. Some pieces show the beauty of nature and people, but some, however, show the darker side. Their pieces have fanatical aspects to them because of these expressions making most pieces fiction and we see the start of the fantasy genre in these unreal works. Characters as well begin to be described more in the books and we see development of them as well as how they feel and what they dream. There is a sense of individualism because many authors focus on one character and follows them throughout the story. They describe what the characters see through descriptive descriptions. These fanatical works show a bit of delusion and craziness. The characters used are sometimes set apart from society with different beliefs or experiences. Many of these fiction pieces have an underlying theme which the author is trying to portray. All of these themes can be seen in the novel Catch-22, written by Joseph Heller.
In Catch-22, the setting takes place during WWII with the main character as a bomber named Yossarian. In this novel, he despises the war and constantly expresses how he wants to leave. We see him develop and begin to learn different morals and information through his partners in war. Like the pieces in Romanticism, Yossarian has an individual idea about the war while others around him try not to bother about it and continue to fight. This makes Yossarian seems apart from his colleagues, who make up the society around him at this time, because of his different opinion than theirs. The setting is described very descriptively because Heller wants to show his audience exactly what is going on in the war in order to express his idea. His idea, an underlying theme throughout the piece, recalls the thought against war. He describes the craziness and stupidity of the war by showing the audience what takes place in war. This creates the setting to be fanatical and crazy as well as deeply described. This craziness can also be seen through the catch-22 which forces all bombers to continue their missions. All of these elements can be tied together with Romanticism.

Catch-22: How it relates to what I've read in class

Catch-22 expresses the antiwar feelings during WWII. In this novel, there are many characters which have different story lines. It's also about a man who expresses the stupidity of war shown through the catch-22. Billy Budd is a novella which was written during the Romanticism era about a ship during the Rationalism period. In this story, the author, Herman Melville, shows the transition from one literary movement to the next by the death of two characters. This novel relates to the novella Billy Budd because of the displacement of the time from when it was written and an underlying theme portrayed through a story.
These two pieces are displaced from the time at which they were written. Catch-22 was written about WWII during WWII. However, this book didn't become beneficial until the Vietnam War. Joseph Heller, the author, tries to portray his distaste for war through this book, but readers began to use this book as a symbol during a later time. Like this novel, Billy Budd was written during the time of Romanticism, but it was set during the time directly after the end of the Revolutionary War. Melville expresses the end of the literary movement of Rationalism, by the death of Captain Vere, one of the main characters, and brings up the idea that Romanticism still exists through the remaining idea of Billy Budd with the crew. These two authors express how they feel about an issue of their time through a book with a different setting then when it was read and influential.

Catch-22: How does it relate to my definition of American Literature?

In the American Literature definition, I talk about how it reflects the emotions, themes, and events of the era from which it was created. Then, war is looked at as an example. Taking a look at war helps to show the emotion expressed through literature about the war. Each time period will also be looked at for the project along with each major war during that time. Many emotions have been expressed through literature about war, especially anti-war feelings. Writers wrote about how war was irrelevant to the time and discussed how it was a silly way to solve problems. In the project, Catch-22 will be an example used because Joseph Heller, the author, expresses the absurdity of war through the cooky characters and stupid idea of the catch-22.
Catch-22 is about a bomber, Yossarian, who doesn't want to be in World War II. His view on his friends make them seem idiotic and crazy. All of his views on the different situations he is put through is horrible and fatal. One rule which he dislikes the most is the catch, catch-22. This explains how soldiers are allowed to go home and leave the war if they are crazy, but in order to be identified as crazy, they have to express that they are crazy. The problem with that is, if they tell they're crazy, they aren't because they are sane enough to know they're crazy. To Yossarian, however, everyone is crazy for wanting to fight in the war. Showing that Yossarian thinks everything is crazy shows how he dislikes the war. This reflects how Heller didn't like the war which he thought was crazy, altogether. The dislike for the war shows that some people didn't want to be involved in a war. This shows that wars should not be the answer to situations and problems but should, instead, not happen at all.