The Brief Analysis on Black Humor in Catch-22 Name：刘彩君 Student Number：09157097 Abstract Joseph Heller is one of the most prominent American writers in the 20th Century. As soon as the publication of his masterpiece, Catch-22, Heller has attracted attention from all over the world and his reputation as a talented American writers was also immediately established. Catch-22 now is universally acknowledged as one of the typical representative books of black humor. Heller makes a wonderful deduction of black humor with the fresh subject and unique style; he creates many absurd images in a symbolic way. Many dialogues, characters‘ individualities and even the chronological structure are disorder, ridiculous and paradoxical. The author of the thesis paper mainly demonstrates the application of black humor in Catch-22 through four aspects: the portrayal of main characters, the arrangement of the chronological structure, the motifs of the novel and the features of language. The thesis is structured as follows: Chapter One takes a brief review of Joseph Heller and his Catch-22, presenting the literature review about the novel in recent years and the thesis statement. Chapter Two gives a general explanation of the black humor. Chapter Three deals with the black humor reflected in Catch-22. Chapter Four is the conclusion. In this part, the author of the thesis concludes the typical use of black humor and its function that help to understand theme and Heller‘s purpose of writing this novel. Key words: black humor, Catch-22, paradoxical law, absurdity Ⅰ. Introduction 1.1 Joseph Heller and Catch-22 Joseph Heller (1923-1999) is an American novelists, playwright and short story writer. As one of the most promi...
