February Mid-Winter Recess Assignemnt

Task: Complete Reading your Independent Study and list something controversial about your novel and why it is controversial. Then complete your writing logs.

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My partner and I chose to read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. A controversial topic would be the title itself, Catch-22:

Catch-22 is the title of the book and a controversial topic. To define what catch-22 is, it is a no-win situation for one person and a complete win for another. As it pertains to the book, Yossarin, the protagonist, is stuck in catch-22. He is a bombardier for the Americans in World War II and does not want to fly anymore. Now there is a rule, which states that you must fly a certain amount of missions before you are released from the service. However, Yossarin’s colonel keeps raising the required number of missions needed in order for an officer to be released from the service. The only other way to stay out of the sky is to be declared “crazy.” Unfortunately for the officer, this is where catch-22 comes into play. If you admit to being crazy, and are proven so, then you are not allowed to fly in the sky. However if you are able to admit to being crazy, then the government (the colonel) states you had to have some reasonable thought to come to this realization, which proves that you are not crazy at all. This is catch-22 and it keeps all the men in the sky.

Now catch-22 is extremely controversial. While the officers and the public might find catch-22 extremely unfair and unreasonable, the government and higher officials see no problem with catch-22. The officer’s argument against catch-22 would probably be something along the lines of “catch-22 is in favor of the government.” The government’s argument would probably be, “rules are rules.” The unfortunate part about this, and why catch-22 is controversial, is that you cannot prove any side wrong as they both have valid arguments.

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My reading logs are available here.