Playfulness: A Postmodernist Study Of Joseph Heller's Catch-22

Joseph Heller's Catch-22 has always been regarded as a masterpiece whenever black humor is concerned. Since its publication in 1961, criticisms and reviews on this novel have covered a wide range of aspects, ranging from themes to narrative techniques. Criticisms in China mainly focus on the issues of black humor, absurdity and the language of this novel. I write this thesis, hoping to find out the postmodernist feature of "playfulness" revealed in this fiction from aspects of narrative structure, parody, word games and black humor, which will certainly contribute to a better research into this novel as well as a better understanding of playfulness as a general feature of postmodernist fiction.For the sake of a more complete understanding and a better analysis of Heller's Catch-22, the introduction part gives a brief introduction of Heller's biography, plot of Catch-22 and contemporary criticisms on this novel. In addition, this part also introduces relationships among postmodernism, black humor and playfulness.Chapter One focuses on the structure of this novel, especially on the playfulness displayed in the formless and repetitious structure.Chapter Two mainly deals with parody the author applies in this novel. As one of the main characteristics of postmodernism, parody plays an important role in the writer's playful attitude. Parodies in this chapter fall into two catalogues: one is the parody of literary figures and works; the other, the parody of politics, religion and psychology of the contemporary society.Chapter Three devotes to the discussion of word games, which are further divided into word games played by the writer and those played by the characters in the fiction.Chapter Four covers black humor and absurdity in this novel. This chapter mainly discusses Heller's playful handling of humor and analyzes the absurdity throughout this novel. Contemporary social background is also taken into account herein.Finally, in the conclusion part, besides a summary of the playfulness discussed in the previous chapters, social background of Heller's playful attitude is further analyzed.