Non Linear, Repetitive, Time Traveling

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Non Linear, Repetitive, Time Traveling Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 is an exercise in non-linear story telling, Heller presents a story as a mosaic. Granted, it’s a story about the madness of war, and madness in general, so the mosaic is rather abstract. The chronology that Heller lays out is maddening in itself. By the time he arrives in the hospital in chapter 1 all of the major events have already taken place. This is not a unique device, many stories start at the end and work their way around to where they started, but this is not the neat progression of circular story telling. Heller uses repeated flashbacks of the same events to reveal the characters and details of those events. The death of Snowden is, probably, the most extreme example of this technique. The first introduction to Snowden is in chapter 4, “Where are the Snowdens of yeateryear?” The question upset them because Snowden had been killed over Avignon when Dobbs went crazy in mid-air and seized the controls away from Huple (Heller, 34).” It’s a vague reference at the time and a question that goes unanswered. Snowden is not referenced again until chapter 17, “Being at the hospital was better than being over Bologna or flying over Avignon with Huple and Dobbs at the controls and Snowden dying in the back (Heller, 81).” And a little later, They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian’s tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane. ‘I’m cold,’ Snowden had whimpered, ‘I’m cold.’ ‘There, there.’ Yossarian had tried to comfort him, ‘There, there. (Heller, 81)” This time, the flashback starts to take on some more shape, Snowden died while Yossarian was trying to comfort him. This continues throughout the book, every time we revisit the Snowden story

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