The Surprising Aspect of Sex in Catch-22

The Surprising Aspect of Sex in Heller's Catch-22 Joseph Heller's humorist-war novel, Catch-22, has many surprising passages and themes. The part that is most surprising to me in Catch-22 is the amount of sexual connotation in a novel based around World War II. The question which has to be raised is, Is Catch-22 really about World War II? While this book is a fictious war novel, you get a different look into the lives of …

…want to die. They are not brave and courageous, like many war novels tend to portray. What Heller is trying to convey here is that the "All that you can be", patriotic and brave soldier who risks his life to save others is not what is real. Yossarian and the other soldiers are real. They talked about sex, they had sex with whores, they molested their nurses and they "ooooooooooooh"ed to their heart's content.