“The government has no business in business, and I would be the last person in the world to ever try to involve the government in a business of mine. But the business of government is business,” writes author Joseph Heller. If the business of government it business, then what is the government’s business in war? Catch-22, a World War II novel, written during the Vietnam war proving that Heller had both past personal experience and a present voice on the subject of war. Heller fought in World War II, so he has an active voice in combat. This voice transcends from Heller’s present view on war to wars of the past. War novels tend to glorify war, but Heller’s does the opposite. Catch-22 is purely ironic war fiction. Heller brings out the truth and insanity of war and exposes the government’s attempt to keep war moral. Once a pilot successfully completes 40 missions, he is allowed to go home; however, even those who have completed their missions have yet to go home. This false hope given to the men in service further confirms the harshness that is war in Catch-22 and in real life. On August 15, 1944, Heller’s armada, while in southern France, faced a multitude of casualties. During the mission, Heller’s copilot went insane while flying the plane back into the clouds they had just escaped. Whilst this terror was upon Heller, he was faced with having to nurse a wounded crew member and save the mission. Heller did not let this trauma stop him; in fact, he took his experience and turned the sad truth into a hilarious fiction on the reality of war, and how governments behave during such times. Because of his usage of dark humor and satire, Joseph Heller uses "catch-22's” to show the ludicrous nature of government in war.

Heller exposes the government during a time of war through the mental anguish, suffering, and dark humor that is a catch-22. Catch-22s trap their victims in a cycle of misfortune: in fact, “One of the qualities of Catch-22 is that it almost eludes exact definition” (Bresler 35). Catch-22s are situations when the deed of accomplishing an action is dependent on another, and vice versa. Heller’s seven catch-22s expose the mental corruption of soldiers caused by the barbarity of a government at war. All seven examples differ in usage of the term. The traditional usage originated from the airman’s catch-22: “‘Sure there’s a catch,’ Doc Daneeka replied. ‘Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.’ There was one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind” (Heller 46). Sanity and insanity seem to almost be flipped: “The best catch there is is not much of a catch...not wanting to fly does not prove that an airman is insane. It is possible that an airman does not want to fly and is still insane. Wanting to fly might prove that an airman is insane, but it is not the only way to prove it” (Bresler 37). The humor in catch-22s is that there is no true way out of the cycle. By trapping the soldiers in this cycle of “insanity,” the government keeps up morall. The soldiers’ mental torment becomes fuel for the government to succeed in the war. The cycle becomes apparent through the first catch presented to the reader, the censoring of letters. The novel opens with the main character, Yossarian, in the hospital. Yossarian, being an officer, was forced to censor letters written by the soldiers. This duty proved to be monotonous, drawing the purest boredom out of Yossarian. For entertaining purposes, Yossarian decided to make games out of his job: “Catch-22 required that each censored letter bear the censoring officer’s name. Most letters he didn’t read at all. On those he didn’t read at all he wrote his own name. On those he did read, he wrote ‘Washington Irving’” (Heller 8). The games Yossarian played were his escape of catch-22.  The only way to escape a catch-22 is to find a loophole; in fact, Yossarian found two: if he did not read or censor the letter, then his name did not have to be written, and the guidelines to a “censored” letter. To Yossarian, a letter without revisions fails to need the name of the revisor. If he reads the letter, but does not change it, then was the letter ever really touched? If the letter seems to not have been touched, then it is as if it was never read. This leads Yossarian to a question: does he write his own name or Washington Irving? Irving was the name he wrote on the letters he read, yet he wrote his own name “Yossarian” on those he left untouched. These letters Yossarian jokes around with are filled with meaning. During this time, the soldiers only communication to their families was through their letters. The approach of making a joke out of such a serious reality exemplifies the mentality of those at war.

The satirical approach that Heller takes gives Catch-22 a sense of reality, proving the truth behind the worst face of the government. No one wins a war; in reality, no matter how strong a nation is, they are bound to endure a loss. Catch-22 is unlike most war novels, in that the plot takes place away from the bloodshed. In combat scenes, characters can be portrayed as heroes or victims, yet in reality it is not as black and white. Heller’s mindfulness behind where his characters are stationed and where their view of the war is set, proves his determination to making Catch-22 a relatable novel. By not including harsh scenes of battle, Heller is able to relate to those who experienced the war from the sidelines, in the hospital, or in the “comfort” of their homes. Heller, through satire, exposes the inhumanities that pollute our social, political, and economic system: “The ultimate horror of the phrase “Catch-22”, for instance, is felt when Yossarian hears it, as though a knell, from the lips of the miserably bereft old woman in the Roman brothel. And the words are horrible not because they connote a world in chaos but because they indicate that the system controlling the military is morally mad” (Seltzer 290). In this scene, Yossarian’s eyes are opened the endless cycle of insanity he, as a soldier, was put in by his own government. Again, the government is behind everyone’s madness and is only self-interested. Catch-22 is flooded with models of moral blindness. The bureaucracy’s mind seems to overpower morality in any war. For example, Yossarian’s successful decision to fly twice over a bridge in attempt to beat the enemy was not congratulated but, in fact, ridiculed because it would look badly on the report. Yossarian's plan, in action, saved innocent lives, but to the government it wasted fuel. The question of what is right and what is wrong has been turned into an economic concept in the mind of the government.  When does extensive mass murder become ethical? Is is when murder brings profit? Mass murder has become normalized, and all those involved in war have become numb to the idea of life. There is an obscurity of the definition of ‘normal’: “By definition, anyone who would question this new normal stands as “abnormal,” or degenerate. On the other hand, whoever fails to question the new normal necessarily acquiesces to and participates in it. In fact that is the catch that is “Catch-22,” a lesson Heller teaches us a thousand times over in his wildly funny and deeply moving satire of what the text at one point terms ‘the military business’” (Hawkins 60). Yossarian’s fascination with discovering what morality of  the human nature can be reborn in a world dehumanized to war correlates to his longing of a day in which peace would overcome war. Heller writes the novel to almost trick the reader in finding humor in such darkness: “Catch 22 is a brilliant satire of the military that illustrates the darkly humorous side of the insanity that is warfare. No organization or institution is safe from the ire of Heller’s pen” (McLaughlin 541). Heller questions and undermines many values at the heart of American life: “Satire enters when the few convict the many of stupidity” (Nagel 47). Catch-22’s satire proves that vice is both ugly and rampant. The solution to this problem is to live by moral virtues, to set a good life, and to be an example for a good society. Heller hides the solution in his characters. None of the characters in Catch-22 are written as heros, yet they convey the values to end the torment of vice. The soldier in white, a man clearly in pain due to injury, is explained as Yossarian’s guest. Heller easily could have conveyed a sob story and pity from the surrounding characters, but alas he did not. Yossarian's point of view on the war, from the hospital, causes him to see the bitter truth of death in war. War being detached from humanity becomes a business of bets on who will survive and who will be the first to die: “Men went mad and they were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys in every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives. There was no end in sight” (Heller 25). The medals meant to signify the pride felt by ones government to the duty one served to his country, yet in the end they meant pain. The medals were distractions of the killings made, turning them into a carnival game. Heller’s language adds to the alluding game that war is. The more bloodshed, the more prizes soldiers will win. Thus, diminishing the meaning of life into a satirical output. Life and death should not be a game, and Yossarian discovered this all while in his hospital bed: “That’s my trouble, you know...When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don’t see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy” (Heller 455). Heller’s satirical approach uncovers the truth that war turns the government into an egotistical combatant authority.

The true face of the government during war is brought to light through Heller’s usage of  dark humor and satire to convey his "catch-22's." The catch that is a “catch-22” is one that brings out the pain and destruction caused on a soldier through the trauma of war. Using such serious content to create humor, shows the principle of how a self concerned government further impair those under its authority. The satire used by Heller in creating his “catch-22’s” justifies the authenticity of the claim that the government amuses itself in war rather than aiding those it protects. The selfishness of the government causes a ripple on those governed. Once the government alludes the severity behind the surrounding conflict, the people begin to mechanize their mindsets allowing ethics and morals to be lost.