The Absurdity Of Joseph Heller's Novels

Joseph Heller is considered to be the representative figure of "black humor" in America.He is famous for his novels.Heller's novels reflect some features of traditional novels as well as some features of "postmodernism".The most essential feature of Heller's novels is the absurdity through the content to the form.This thesis is divided into three part.The first part expounds the "absurdity" motif of Heller's novels from four sides:life and death; person and person; person and society; person and the God.The second part analyzes several techniques of expression from aesthetics,the mode of thinking,characterization,plot and language style.The third part observes and studies the social historical and cultural background in which Heller lived,combined with the life of Heller especially the influence of philosophic ideological trend and finally elaborates the feature of absurdity of Heller's novels:revealing the truth with absurdity.Bacing on the three parts,this thesis considers that the absurdity of the content and the form of Heller's novels makes up the absurd style of Heller's novels and in substance the feature of his novels is revealing the truth with absurdity.