THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH - Yossarian’s one goal—to stay alive or die trying—is based on the assumption that he must ultimately fail. He believes that Snowden’s gory death revealed a secret: that man is, ultimately, garbage. But Yossarian’s awareness of the inevitability of death is not entirely negative: it gives him a sense of how precious life is, after all, and he vows to live for as long as possible. He also lives more fully than he would without his constant consciousness of life’s frailty. He falls in love constantly and passionately, and he laments every second that he cannot spend enjoying the good things in the world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Brief Biography of Joseph Heller

Born in Brooklyn to Jewish parents, Joseph Heller joined the US Army Air Force, at age 19, in 1942, and ended up flying 60 missions during the Second World War, many of which were not dangerous. Heller studied at the University of Southern California, NYU, and Columbia, and was a Fulbright scholar at Oxford. He taught English literature, briefly, and worked in magazine publishing. Heller began writing Catch-22 in 1953, eventually completing the novel and seeing it published in 1961. It was not an overnight success, but its paperback release caused it to become a

cult favourite, especially among young people. A movie based on the novel was released in 1970, and at this point Heller had achieved a good deal of fame. Heller wrote numerous other novels, some of which were well received, although none achieved the renown of Catch-22. He taught at City College of New York and other universities later in life. Heller's novel is inseparable from the backdrop of World War II, in which it is set. During the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, novelists like Vonnegut, Heller, Pynchon, Mailer attempted to make sense of the new state of the world, after the US had won the war against fascism and was trying, with however much difficulty, to “win the peace” against Soviet Russia.