陶洁《美国文学选读》(第3版)笔记和课后习题详解(第25单元 约瑟夫

第25单元约瑟夫•海勒

25.1复习笔记

I.Introduction to author（作者简介）

1.Life（生平）

Joseph Heller(1923-1999)was born into an immigrant Jewish family in Coney Island,Brooklyn.During the WWII he was listed in US Air Force,and performed his bombing mission for60times in France and Italy.He is the most prominent American novelist of the absurd in the postwar period.He wrote a book about his experience in the war.This is the famous Catch-22,the title of which has become a new addition to the English language.

约瑟夫·海勒(1923—1999)出生于布鲁克林的一个移民犹太家庭。二战中参加美国空军，曾在法国和意大利执行过60次轰炸任务。他是美国二战后最杰出的荒诞派小说家。他写了一部关于他的战争经历的书，这就是著名的《第二十二条军规》，其标题已经成为英语语言中的一个新的词汇。

2.Major Works（主要作品）

Catch-22(1961)《第二十二条军规》

We Bombed in New Haven(1968)《我们轰炸纽黑文》

Something Happened(1974)《出了毛病》

Good as Gold(1979)《好的不得了》

God Knows(1984)《上帝知道》

II.Selected works（主要作品分析）

◆Catch-22《第二十二条军规》

(1)Catch-22was the first book in America to treat the absurdity theme with absurdist techniques.It protests against the absurdity of modern America as embodied by the military power structure it describes.

(2)The protagonist,Yossarian,is afraid of death.He has lost faith in God,and feels no sense of security any more.Along with his fellow pilots,he is horrified as the sight of death and absurdity around him.

(3)The world of Yossarian is an absurd one,and the way Heller exposes it is through burlesque,the ruthless burlesque of the military unreason as best represented by its three major features:the structured chaos of the military build-up,the military logic,one symbol of which is a“rule”known as“Catch-22”, and the widespread absurdity on all level of existence.

(4)Joseph Heller uses an absurd linguistic surface to reflect the depth of the absurdity of the modern world.Devices such as“circular conversations”, constructions with their comic,unexpected responses,the“wrenched cliché”which results from the change of“a key word in an otherwise hackneyed expression,”juxtaposed incongruities,sudden tonal changes from seriousness to triviality—all these are skillfully employed to convey the illogicality and the unpredictability of a mad world.

（1）《第二十二条军规》是美国第一部以荒诞技巧表现荒诞主题的著作，它以对军队情景的具体描述抗议现代美国社会的荒诞性。

（2）故事的主人公，飞行员尤索林，害怕自己会死去，他对上帝失去了信仰，再也没有了安全感。他和其他伙伴一起惊恐地目睹了发生在身边的死亡和荒诞事件。

（3）尤索林所在的是一个荒诞的世界，通过三个特点，海勒对军队的荒谬性进行了残酷讽刺：即军队结构中的组织混乱，军事逻辑（其象征之一就是“第二十二条军规”）和各个层面上分布的荒诞性。

（4）约瑟夫·海勒运用了荒诞的语言表象来反映现代社会的荒诞程度之深。许多语言手段，如“循环式对话”问答极其幽默并出人意料；“套语”的运用，即把俗语中关键字眼换成能产生荒谬效果的字词；谈话语气的突然变化，即由严肃话题到琐细话题的突然跳跃和转换等等诸如此类的文学修辞手法。这些手法的巧妙结合，使小说的文字呈现一种荒诞状貌，有力地表现了一个疯狂世界缺乏理智和逻辑以及不可预料的特点。

25.2课后习题详解

1.In what way is the hospital scene related to Yossarian’s reminiscence of Snowden?

Key:Before Snowden died,Yossarian tried to save him,but he could not make it, because that Snowden was injured so seriously that he was impossible to be saved.At that time,Yossarian was shocked by Snowden’s wound and he could not forget about the scene he witnessed.It inscribed on his mind and became a kind of nightmare for him;when he witnesses scenes in hospital,he will