浅谈《第二十二条军规》中的黑色幽默.doc

The Black Humor in Catch-22
Bian Liping

Abstract: Catch-22 is a typical representative book of black humor. It was born in a special context: People began to doubt and deny their own traditional values, and were eager to find spiritual relief from the literature of satire and humor. Joseph Heller, the author of this novel, described in a symbolic way of many ridiculous images. In this novel, many words, phrases and dialogue are confusing, duplicate, suspicious and contradicting. “Catch 22”, through the whole novel, is a magic weapon of officers to govern and make fun of soldiers under the capitalist system, which like a net is always bound the little people and makes them be trapped in it.
The paper mainly analyzed black humor in Catch-22 through several aspects, including deepen the theme of black humor, depicting characters, arrangement structure and language use. In a word, Catch -22 is one of the most important works of black humor and the readers are made to have a better understanding of the novel Catch-22 by the paper.

Key Words：Black Humor; Absurd; Catch 22; Ridiculous

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浅谈《第二十二条军规》中的黑色幽默
边丽萍

【摘要】 《第二十二条军规》是一部典型的黑色幽默的代表作，它诞生于特殊的时代背景：人们开始怀疑并否定自己的传统价值观念，渴望讽刺、幽默的文学作品中寻找精神上的解脱。小说的作者约瑟夫·海勒用象征的手法描绘了一幅幅荒谬的图像。小说中有许多单词、短语以及对话是迷惑的、重复的、怀疑的和矛盾的。贯穿全文的“第二十二条军规”总是束缚着那些小人物，像一张网把他们困在其中，成为资本主义制度下军规管辖和捉弄士兵的法宝。
本文主要通过主题的深化、人物的塑造、结构的安排以及语言的运用方面分析了《第二十二条军规》中的黑色幽默。总而言之，《第二十二条军规》是黑色幽默作品中最重要的一部。本文旨在帮助读者更好的理解《第二十二条军规》这部小说。

【关键词】 黑色幽默; 悖论; 第二十二条军规; 荒谬

1

The Black Humor in Catch-22
1. Introduction
Catch-22, published in 1961, because its powerful flogging to the war, the capitalist free enterprise competition and the American decadent way of life, making Joseph Heller became a well-known writer of literary. Catch-22 is a farce full of irony and black humor.
Black humor as an artistic technique most commonly appear in two types of literary form: the antiwar-novel and the theater of the absurd. This means of artistic sometimes is considered morbid (sick), because it contains an alternative and critical attitude of its own to modern society. As many of his contemporary novels of the United States after World War, Catch-22 was born in a particular period of history, the cold war between the superpowers has prompted by the optimism accompanied the post-World War II economic prosperity lost An absurd feeling of life rooted in the living circumstances of ordinary people. The destruction of rational normal order has almost become a common phenomenon in society. In the 1950s, American life has been fundamentally polluted and destructed the hysteria McCarthy by anti-communist, on this point in Chapter 21 of the Catch-22, it has related to this. United States civil rights movement and the Vietnam War have further exacerbated the turbulent situation, moreover, more and more people began to doubt everything and lose faith to everything.
In addition, due to the development and breakthroughs of new science and technology, it gives the people a sense of gaining in strength. But it deprives the last mysterious of the life itself, and makes more and more people alienate from human nature. All of these have fundamentally shaken the firm belief of the people to God and the universe, people no longer looking for spiritual solace from Christianity. Catch-22 was born in this special context: God and Christianity increasingly lost cornerstone function which in the past been widely recognized and play the role of the moral and spirit. Therefore, it is an absurd fiction on irrational theme.

2. Literature Review
Catch-22 not only takes a household name in the United States but also its inception has a vast audience in the world. Critics concern Catch-22 mainly in three aspects: artistic techniques, characters and themes. Among them, the black humor of the novel, the anti-hero and absurd theme in the novel are repeated, excavated, and novel structure and language features are also involved.
In 1961, Catch-22 has been published lead to a sensation in the literary world. Literature in foreign countries, Catch-22 is too numerous to count, there is some authentic works such as Robert Merrill’s Joseph Heller in 1987, David Seed’s The Fiction of Joseph Heller: Against the Grain in 1989, Sanford Pinsker’s Understanding Joseph Heller in 1991.
In China, Li Junsheng (2011) gave interpretation of the black humor and symbolism of Catch-22 through to analysis the characters in the novel. Zhang Ling (2010) from the perspective of textual analysis discussed the generation mechanism of black humor. Zhang Hao (2007), based on the examples of a lot of black humor in the text language, from paradox, parallel antithesis, repetition, mutatis mutandis, and the juxtaposition of rhetorical level, revealed the author’s means of using black humor to deepen the irrational theme of the novel and pointed out that the language features of black humor is surreal characterization of its showing of the irrational world. Jin Haiyun (2005) made an interpretation of hero Yossarian from the point of view of the anti-hero. Gao Yu (2006), through description and depiction of various characters sketched all living creatures of contemporary American society. Xiang Lin (2001) elaborated Catch-22’s writing style. The content of the novel also produced a number of reviews from innovative angle; such as Huang Wenjing (2008) based on the novel content came up with "Catch 22" was not symbol of eternal ultra-words, not "Heller’s myth ", and was just a uncertain metaphor of, no certainty. Wu Xiaoyun, Xiong Wanqiong (2008) summed up the narrative technique of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. In addition to these, there are many analysis works from a new perspective.
Yang Hong (2007) gave an interpretation of the alienation of the characters in Catch-22; put forward the most important theme of the novel: the alienation of the soul reflects the absurdity of the social reality. Zhang Nana (2008) revealed the conversational implicate in the Catch-22 and proposed to apply the pragmatics session meaning theory to the novel analysis. Liu Yujuan (2009) from the art described the features of the "black humor", the novel uses exactly scattered form that same with the performance of the absurd content, put the fragment of the real plot and a lot of ridiculous plot blend together which shows disordered logical and complex content. From the point of view of the human spirit, Xiang Shimin (2000) analyzed the works of black humor, affirmed the value of the Catch-22. Peng Peng (2010) analyzed the military’s internal conflicts embodied in Catch-22. Zhang Wen (2007), according to the basic strategy of deconstruction philosophy, deconstructed the Catch-22.
Du Huiying (2008), praised Joseph Heller through superb character shape, wonderful irony, incredible paradox and absurdity of the creative, successfully blend the humor and horror, comedy and tragedy, thus revealing the ruthless and cruel of the war. Cha Ming (2011) brought forward that the most outstanding artistic attainments was achieve "black humor" this modern aesthetic form, which showed the language features of black humor literature.
Although the book was published nearly 50 years of history, but this work is still has a big space to study. Whether it is based on the current form of research or my own expectations, I believe, as a typical representative work of black humor, the research of Catch-22 will be more and more systems, in-depth, and innovative.
3. Understanding and Definition of Black Humor in Catch-22
Unlike traditional humor, black humor is a special kind of humor; it is desperate, crazy, deep and cynical humor, which is an important characteristic of "black humor". "Black" is opposed to the light and joy, is in pathological features an ideological and emotional aspect, which is gloomy and depressed, is despair, sorrow and pain, and is an objective reality. However, "humor" is a satire and to ridicule the objective reality. It reflects the emotions of spicy, grief, anger and cynicism when the morbid mood combined with traditional humor. The so-called "black humor" refers to the kind of "sick and absurd humor" in "seeking pleasure from cruel". "Black humor" is a literary form that uses comedy form to express the tragedy content. It is a comedy tied together with pain and laughter, cruel and tenderness, facts and absurd. Therefore, it is also known as "black comedy", "desperate comedy", "humor under gallows" and "humor faced with imminent disaster".
The main features of the "black humor" in the create tendency is that find humor from the "black" (dark), and use humor to deal with the "black". The former refers to the writer's view of the world and the content of the work, and the latter refers to the writer's attitudes of conduct themselves in society and creative attitude. In other words, the writer of "black humor" hold that universe, society and life are not only ridiculous, ugly, cold and dark, but also grotesquerie, mysterious and hard to guess. So, everyone is living in an absurd, morbid situation, and this situation is closely linked to the suffering, anxiety and death. In order to highlight describe the absurdity of the People around the world and social oppression to the individual, they use a magnifying glass and distorting mirror to make the absurdity and oppression be enlarged, twisted, distorted, which makes the absurdity and oppression become more absurd, ridiculous, and more abnormal unreasonable, ugly and hateful. But it also pinned the mood of pessimism and suffering that they have no alternative. Therefore, some people said that "black humor" is a literary form in desperate conditions to use comedy to perform the tragedy content, it is reasonable. In short, we can completely look it as a "desperate humor".
4. Joseph Heller and Catch-22
4.1 Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller (1923-1999), the representative of American black humor and absurd writer, was born in Brooklyn, New York City, a Russian-Jewish family. During World War II, he served as an Air Force lieutenant. After the war he studied in the college, and graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. After graduated from Columbia University with Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949, Heller got the Fulbright Research Fund and went to the University of Oxford in England for a year of advanced studies. From 1950 to 1952, Heller taught at the Pennsylvania State University and other schools. Since then he left school to work in "Time" and "Outlook" magazine editorial office. In 1961, his long novel Catch-22 was come out and got the fame, and that year Heller gave up his duties, and worked specialized in writing.
In addition to the Catch-22, Heller had published two novels: Something Happened (1974) and Good as Gold (1979). The former through describing the daily life of the American middle class managers to reflect their anguish, loss of the spiritual world; the latter with a witty and sarcastic stroke painted a caricature of American politics and social life by the life experiences of a Jewish intellectual who attempted to get involved in officialdom. Heller had ever written the script; such as We Bombed in New Haven, etc, but had little impact.
Heller's novel is based on the real life. It was reflecting some aspects of American life with a certain degree of understanding and aesthetic value through the distorting mirror and the magnifying glass of art. Of course, his work has some common mistakes of black humor literature, such as showing the helpless feeling to social reality.
4.2 Catch-22
4.21 Catch-22’s Writing Background
Catch-22 was created in the 1960s, after World War II, various American social conflicts intensified, people began to feel uneasy and disappointed to present situation, "McCarthyism" made people doubt the capitalism that they always believed, especially after they witnessed the brutality of war and bloody, people were forced to face a world that traditional concepts and value concepts were lost and people began to doubt and deny their own traditional values, and anxiously to the existence of their own. At the same time, they felt the absurdity in the everywhere of materialism society. The special background made the "black humor" come into being. People were eager to find spiritual relief from the literature of humor and satire. Black humorists had influenced by existentialism and anti-novel, and they have carried out a bold innovation from either the subject or writing skills, and have depicted an ironically world by absurdity.
The writer of this genre had focused on the description of the absurdity of the world around the characters, the social oppression to individual and alienation of human nature. They use magnifying glass and distorting mirror of art to put the absurd and oppression in this life as well as alienation of human nature to be amplified, distorted, and thus made that more absurd and hideous abomination And also pinned their own dissatisfaction and resistance to social reality. Joseph Heller was the representative of the writer of black humor literature in the United States, his novel Catch-22 was created out under this social background. "Catch" was a pun, refers to both "require" and the "trap", it had no written basis, but existed everywhere, while people could not get rid of. Catch 22 was always bound the little people to make them into a state of alienation and unable to extricate themselves, like a faint network that both all-inclusive and unpredictable. It became a magic weapon of officers to govern and made fun of soldiers under the capitalist system.
4.2.2 Catch-22’s Synopsis
During World War II, a flying brigade in the United States stationed on the island of the "Pianosa” in the Mediterranean. This was a strange "world". The brigade commander Colonel Cathcart wanted to be a general which was his only goal and in order to achieve his own purpose; he did everything possible to win the hearts