Marie Fleurimond Tuesday, September 12, 2000 Period 2 Shonty AP English Composition & Language What’s So Funny...Catch 22? Comedy and tragedy have always been separated into separate categories. Certainly most tragedies have humorous moments, and even the craziest comedies were at times serious. Nevertheless, even the development of tragedies left the division unharmed. That is, until Catch-22. Joseph Heller does not deal with these issues in the normal fashion instead he criticizes them and the society that help …showed first 75 words of 944 total…

…showed last 75 words of 944 total…represents one of the most skillful blends of comedy and tragedy in the entire novel. Though conflicting, horror and tragedy are combined. Heller creates situations where the audience laughs, and then must look back in horror at what they were laughing at. Through characterizations, irony, paradoxes, and irrationality, Heller manages humor and terror, comedy and tragedy into a whole as Catch-22. Expressing a painful or troubling theme or idea in a humorous or pleasurable way.