Defying convention, Joseph Heller in Catch-22 aggrandizes the human condition and introduces the reader to the decay of a grim world. In doing so, Heller’s writing soaks in the sullen irony of existence. What is humorous early on becomes petrifying in the end, what is unresolved early on remains unresolved. Catch-22 challenges the preconceived notion of a chronological storyline and that a conflict in a novel should be settled. Heller toys with form, he toys with time and chronology, he disregards praxis in ways that are reflective of the schools of thought of authors during his lifetime. The very substance of the work - the mindless repetition of words, meandering chronology, and circular logic games - defy the established methods of writing.…show more content… “For the existentialist, the value and meaning of each temporal dimensions of lived time is a function of our attitudes and choices…If time is of the essence, and the existentialist will insist that it is, then part of who we are is our manner of living the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’ of our existence, made concrete by how we handle our immersion in the everyday ” (Way). In these moments Heller’s characters come to terms with their existence in the present and become aware of a future. Similar to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, it is virtually impossible to actualize being in the present. When Yossarian becomes aware, he immediately switches to another moment in time. As Davis argues in his account on existence, “Upon examination, however, the being of the present escapes us and finally is revealed as affected with nothingness”(Davis). Pushed along by reality, we move, unwavering, towards a future. In absurdist texts, it is the encumbrance of this uncertain future that seems to drive the characters mad. Memories organize time in a continuum in order to make sense of life and to arrange it into tangible components. Yet, the paradox is that we are continually present, always within the frame of a past and present. Heller’s use of “foreshadowing flashbacks,”(Burhans), emulates the human mind’s faculties of memory by describing terse…show more content… “‘Do you know how long a year takes when it’s going away?’ Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. ‘This long.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you’re an old man […] You’re inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?’” Yossarian and many other characters, often stuck in between life’s beginning and end, are in harm’s way indefinitely, so pray for time to wait. Death, however, as seen with Nately’s whore, can strike at any moment, as Heller indicates in his absurd vision. We are silly, according to Heller, to concern ourselves with such lunacies as death and the preservation of youth. If it is not enough that German soldiers and Milo’s bomb squad are trying to kill him, Yossarian notes that his body is absurdly manufactured to fail. “There were billions of conscientious body cells oxidating away day and night like dumb animals at their complicated job of keeping him alive and healthy, and every one of them was a potential traitor and foe” (Heller 172). The illusion of a life devoid of the effects
