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Volume :4 Issue : 14 1984
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Time, Structure, And The Search For Continuity In Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Auther : Kenneth Payne
This paper concerns Joseph Heller’s novel of world war 11, catch-22 its appearance in 1961, the book met with much adverse criticism for what was usually seen as its disorganized from. It is the aim of this essay to present catch-22 as a carefully designed fiction, and to establish some of the serious purposes behind Heller’s deliberately disorienting structure, by way of an analogy with Laurence sterna’s tristram Shandy, Heller’s unconventional treatment of time, in particular, is shown to reinforce some of the novel’s main thematic concerns. Finally, an attempt is made to redefine the book’s central impact. On the strength of the disrupted time-scheme of Catch-22 the novel is viewed as an early expression of the recent interest shown in the idea of discontinuity in contemporary experience.