Justice In Joseph Heller's Catch-22

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Justice is something that we all wish everyone and every place in the world had. Yossarian, the main character in the novel Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, is no exception. This novel tells of a young man enlisted in the American army during World War II and stationed at Italy, Yossarian. The plot follows his past and present war adventures through flashbacks and different characters’ perspectives. We see Yossarian witness deaths of his closest friends, such as Clevinger, McWatt, Nately, Snowden, Hungry Joe, Orr, and how they each start to change his perspective on the world. We also see Yossarian be advised and comforted by some of his other close friends, such as Doc Daneeka, the Chaplain, and Major Danby. Using these new perspectives and advises, Yossarian finds more and more evidence to back up his idea …show more content…
Most importantly, though, he believes that there is no justice in the way that the authorities keep raising number of required missions for any reason possible. For example, Colonel Cathcart, near the end of the novel, raises the number of missions to, at first, seventy five because of the death of Nately, and then to eighty because it was falsely determined that the Doc Daneeka was killed as well. He even argues with his dead fellow squadron member, Clevinger, about the justice or injustice in these increasing number of flying missions.Yossarian, of course, is the one to ask, “‘I’ve got to keep flying combat missions because of that dose of yours until they kill me… What’s the justice in that?’” (Heller, 171) Clevinger argues back that, “‘It’s the highest kind of justice of all’” (Heller,
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