Through courts-martial for going AWOL, he would be busted in rank back to private, but Catch-22 limited the number of times he could do this before being sent to the stockade.Īt another point in the book, a prostitute explains to Yossarian that she cannot marry him because he is crazy, and she will never marry a crazy man.

One clause mentioned in chapter 10 closes a loophole in promotions, which one private had been exploiting to reattain the attractive rank of private first class after any promotion. For example, in the first chapter, it requires Yossarian to sign his name to letters that he censors while he is confined to a hospital bed. Other appearances in the novel īesides referring to an unsolvable logical dilemma, Catch-22 is invoked to explain or justify the military bureaucracy. 'The law says they don't have to.'Īccording to literature professor Ian Gregson, the old woman's narrative defines 'Catch-22' more directly as the 'brutal operation of power', stripping away the 'bogus sophistication' of the earlier scenarios. 'They don't have to show us Catch-22,' the old woman answered. 'Didn't they show it to you?' Yossarian demanded, stamping about in anger and distress. All they kept saying was 'Catch-22, Catch-22.' What does it mean, Catch-22? What is Catch-22?' 'Then why are you chasing us out?' the girls said. The men said no and pushed them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. 'The soldiers with the hard white hats and clubs. 'How did you know it was Catch-22? Who the hell told you it was Catch-22?' 'What the hell are you talking about?' Yossarian shouted at her in bewildered, furious protest. 'Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.' In a final episode, Catch-22 is described to Yossarian by an old woman recounting an act of violence by soldiers: In chapter 6, Yossarian (the protagonist) is told that Catch-22 requires him to do anything his commanding officer tells him to do, regardless of whether these orders contradict orders from the officer's superiors. The term is applied to various loopholes and quirks of the military system, always with the implication that rules are inaccessible to and slanted against those lower in the hierarchy.

Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.ĭifferent formulations of 'Catch-22' appear throughout the novel. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. All he had to do was ask and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy.' 'Sure there's a catch,' Doc Daneeka replied. This phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist who invokes 'Catch-22' to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity-hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions-demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane. Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II. One connotation of the term is that the creators of the 'catch-22' situation have created arbitrary rules in order to justify and conceal their own abuse of power. the only way to qualify for a loan is to prove to the bank that you do not need a loan). Another example is a situation in which someone is in need of something that can only be had by not being in need of it (e.g. The term was coined by Joseph Heller, who used it in his 1961 novel Catch-22.Ĭatch-22s often result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to, but has no control over, because to fight the rule is to accept it. A flowchart showing Joseph Heller's original Catch-22Ī catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations.

Catch 22 meaning