An Existential Analysis of Catch-22 英语毕业论文：第二十二条军规赏析（ 完整版）.docVIP

An Existential Analysis of Catch-22 Contents Acknowledgements i Abstract(English) ii Abstract(Chinese) iii 1. Introduction1 1.1 Catch-22 1 1.2 Writing Background 1 2. The Existentialism…2 2.1 “I think, so I am” and “existence before essence” 2 2.2 The initiative of the soldiers3 3. Free Choice 4 3.1 Orr5 3.2 Yossarian 6 4. The Absurdity of the World7 4.1 The Absolute power of the Bureaucracy7 4.2 The Moral Insanity8 4.3 The Inevitability of Death9 5. Conclusion 10 Work Cited12  Abstract This paper is going to talk about the existentialism in Joseph Heller’s masterpiece Catch-22. As regards to the influence of existentialism on literature, Jean Paul Sartre’s theories are the one of the great significance, which is the main concern in this thesis. Joseph Heller (1923-1999) is one of the most representative writers of Black Humor, which forecasts the dominating of American post-modernism literature. The heart of Black Humor is the description of the absurdity of the world, which is also a doctrine of existentialism. So it is said that existentialism is one of the origins of Black Humor. In Catch-22, there are bounds of freedom and the struggles to get off from them, which is a main theme of the book. And as regard to Sartre’s existentialism, the central thought is the freedom to choose what one wants to be or to do, which agrees with the theme of Catch-22 above I have mentioned. So in this paper I just choose Sartre’s existentialist thoughts to analyze it, despite other existentialists. Existentialism is a different point of view to look at the traditional war-novel, from which I think a deeper and more theoretical criticism of the war as well as that of the world can be obtained. For the value of this paper, first of all, it will prove Catch-22 an existential novel. Both centered on the theme of freedom, this novel and existentialism share the same basis, so it’s natural to connect them together. Also, there is chapter four on absurdity to illustrate t