A Trauma Study Of Joseph Heller And His Catch-22

Joseph Heller is one of the most important novelists and representative writers ofblack humor in America in the second half of the twentieth century. Catch-22is hisfirst novel and receives popular and wide critical acclaim and is undoubtedly his bestachievement. Many critics have given high praise for the novel’s structure, narratingtechniques, theme etc.To have a better understanding of the novel, the background of it should be takeninto consideration, which is that the author writes it based on his war experiences andwar trauma. In the1920s, a group of psychologists with Freud Sigmund being therepresentative started the scientific study of trauma which aroused intense attentionsince then. Trauma theory was advanced in the United States in the early1990s bysome theorists such as Judith Herman, Cathy Caruth. This thesis attempts to give anew perspective for the understanding of Catch-22by applying the trauma theory，pointing out that the trauma that the characters in Catch-22suffered is exactly thesame as Heller’s in World War II. Through writing Catch-22Joseph Heller recoveredfrom his own war trauma.The thesis will be divided into five chapters. The first chapter serves as theintroduction which contains the related studies and significance of the present thesis.The next chapter touches on the literature review on Catch-22abroad and at home.The third chapter expatiates trauma theory, including its definition, trauma event andtrauma therapy, which constitute the theoretical basis of the thesis. The next chaptercarefully analyzes Catch-22from the perspective of trauma theory, which focuses onthe analysis of trauma and recovery of Heller and some prominent characters inCatch-22. The last part replays Heller’s traumatic experience and concludes with thesignificance of the present study to give readers a more comprehensive interpretationof Catch-22from the perspective of trauma. The analysis of this thesis sheds light on how war and violence lays bare the horriblecontortion of human nature and brings tragedy, which urges readers to makeretrospect of the very nature of war.