The Catches in Catch-22

   Catch-22 is a satirical novel that portrays the mishaps and bizarre situations a group of American soldiers face in the midst of World War II. With its snide comments and ridiculous circulating humor, it has proven to be one of the best books I've ever read; I have really enjoyed it up until now. I have found the part where Heller explains the Catch-22 very amusing and only now realized that the book contains many catches, hidden at plain sight since the reader doesn't realize the many different connotations and definitions of the word catch.

   The first small catch in the book, which is not a part of the novel, is that the novel itself is a great catch. It is very entertaining, full of great stories and metaphors and an excellent piece of literary work worth reading. The story line and Joseph Heller's great description, syntax and diction will definitely catch your attention and soon you will find yourself caught in its fantastic web of adventures and inconveniences. 

   But there are also another use of "catch" that lies inadvertently in the novel. Aside from its use in the infamous Catch-22, catching is also a big part of a theme that is introduced in the novel: justice and getting what you deserve. In a part of the novel, the soldiers are talking about what if every person each received what they had coming, and one interjects to say that this is true, that he got malaria when he was having sex on the beach when he should have gotten an STD. Then another soldier replies that he got his STD when he went out to do a casual errand and he ended up having sex with a woman he didn't even want to have sex with. They both caught what was not coming their way, and maybe even their fates crossed roads and exchanged goods, as the second soldier suggested. They were just mere observers as their life got a little bit more screwed up than before, and not exactly the way they intended (more like deserved) to. 

   The vocabulary in these type of novels can contain more than what is seen at first glance,    as seen here. This is why it is important to analyze elements like these; the different meanings of the word "catch" add more meaning to the novel and more philosophical arguments to be explored.