Catch-22 & One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Black Humor; A Satirical View Of The Institution

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entertained, but then they realize the seriousness of the situation, and the reader realizes that the joke is on them. The author knew that they would laugh, and the author knew that the reader would be disgusted with themselves because of it. Consequently, the very nature of this process and the sense of personal guilt that is involved invokes a sense of anger. This anger is directed towards the reason for the situation or absurdity. Therefore, the absurdities found in these novels is very effective and very poignant (Pratt 420).
Initially the situations in Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest seem silly and without value to the story. The irrational nature of the characters entertains our fascination with the unusual. This is much like the way in which people slow down to gawk at a car accident. Furthermore, the interaction and subsequent conflict between these characters causes even more anarchy and momentary entertainment.

Some of these “car accidents” are found ...

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shipped to Geneva to pay for the cheeses that must go to Vienna...(Heller 365)

Possibly, the most absurd character in the novel is Colonel Cathcart. Cathcart’s personality itself is humorous because it is based on paradoxes,

He was dashing and dejected, poised and chagrined...handsome and unattractive...He was tormented chronically by prolonged seizures of apprehension...The fact that there where thousands of men his own age and older who have not even attained the rank of major enlivened him...on the other hand, the fact that there where men of his own age and younger who where already generals contaminated him with a sense of failure and...unappeasable anxiety. (Heller 185)

This ...

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