Joseph Heller Catch 22.ppt

Joseph HellerCatch-22 Presenter: Xiong Li Joseph Heller index His life experience His writing career Catch-22 contents theme black humor in this novel reviews Joseph Heller Catch 22 Joseph Heller(1923-1999), is an American writer, who gained world fame with his satirical, anti-war novel CATCH-22 (1961), set in the World War II Italy. The book was partly based on Hellers own experiences and influenced among others Robert Altmans comedy M*A*S*H, and the subsequent long-running TV series, set in the Korean War. The phrase catch-22 has entered the English language to signify a no-win situation, particularly one created by a law, regulation or circumstance. His life experience Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York, as the son of poor Jewish parents. At the age of nineteen, Heller enlisted as an air force bombardier in Italy. Experiences that he had during World War II formed the basis for Catch-22. After the war he studied English at the University of Southern California and New York University. In 1949 he received his M.A. from Columbia University. Before Catch-22 was published in 1961, Heller taught at a number of institutions, including the City College of New York, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. His writing career His first stories Heller sold already during his student times. They were published in magazines. In the early 1950s he started working on Catch-22. At that time Heller was employed as a copywriter at a small advertising agency. Most of the book he wrote in the lobby of a West End Avenue apartment. The book was first published in the quarterly New World Writing in 1955 under the title Catch-18. The novel went largely unnoticed until 1962, when its English publication received critical praise. His writing career Heller waited 13 years before publishing his next novel - the darker and sombre Something Happened (1974). It portrayed a corporation man Bob Slocum, who suffers from insomnia and almost smells the disaster mountin