• Parallelism: “Each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes” (15).
• Imagery: “There was nothing funny about living like a bum in a tent in Pianosa between fat mountains behind him and a placid blue sea in front that could back to gulp down a person with a cramp in the twinkling of an eye and ship him back to shore three days later, all charges paid, bloated, blue and putrescent, water draining out through both cold nostrils” (26).
• Metaphor: “Doc Daneeka was unmoved. He was a sad, birdlike man with the spatulate face and scrubbed, tapering features of a well-groomed rat” (30).
• Imagery: “The administration area in which Hungry Joe had pitched his tent by mistake lay in the center of the squadron between the ditch, witch its rusted railroad tracks, and the tilted black bituminous road” (35-36).
• Simile: “The line was taut as a banjo string, and the merest tug would snap it on and blind the shivering quarry in a blaze of light” (39).
In Joseph Heller’s historical fiction Catch-22, the effects of war on the human psyche are illustrated. Juxtaposing tongue-in-cheek humor with ultra-realistic horror, Heller is able to capture the essence of the military. Heller uses parallelism in the beginning to emphasize the fact that these doctors are able to articulate things well, but fail to see what is truly happening in war. Numerous examples of imagery capture war in all of its characteristics, from sinking depression to a simple humorous gesture. A metaphor highlights a volta when Yossarian leaves the luxurious feast to learn that the colonel had added more missions to the itinerary. A simile suggests a feeling of patriotism when referencing the banjo, characteristic of Americana. Heller uses these rhetorical strategies to exhibit the effects of war.
Woah, I am impressed with the amount of thought and effort put into this post. You include strong examples of the most prominent forms of rhetorical strategies found in the book, then provide very strong commentary to the effect of these Rhetorical Strategies as a whole. Also making this analysis strong was the highly intellectual interpretations of the effects of the Rhetorical Strategies. After reading your thoughts, I feel that you have accurately expressed Joseph Heller's purpose of Rhetocial Strategies in his entire novel. Great work!
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