When people hear the words war, death, mental health, and pain, the last thing they would probably think of is satire. However, in the book Catch 22, author Joseph Heller uses satire to shed light on all of these topics, point out the characters' flaws, and provide comic relief. Heller revolves his book around satire, at a time when no one had really used, or even knew, what satire was. Heller's writings introduced readers to a new way of expressing humor while highlighting the tragedies of war and changing people's ideas about how they view war. Satire is truly a remarkable literary element that was used perfectly in the book Catch 22. Heller will forever change the way Americans view war and government and, over time, will slowly change the understanding and appreciation of people for satire in literature and continues to do so. even to this day. The lessons and messages of Catch-22 are still used and are relevant even to this day. Heller's insight and knowledge about the world before anyone even realized these things is truly remarkable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayAlthough satire and dark humor are somewhat common in today's society, at the time of release from Catch 22, they were considered rude and immature. Writer Whitney Balliett writing for the New Yorker described this style of comedy saying, "Heller uses absurdities, satire, non-sequiturs, slap-stick, and farce. He wallows in his own laughter and drowns in it. What's left is the debris of sharp jokes, stage anger, swear words, synthetic insanity, and the kind of buffoonish behavior kids fall into when they know they're losing our attention. It's clear that at the time, most people saw Heller's form of comedy as a nasty attraction for attention, rather than what it actually was; showing the dark ways we humans use to deal with dark times, as Yossarian does in the book to diminish and minimize the severity of war. The humor in the book wasn't the safe PG comedy that people were used to at the time, it was hard, harsh, coded humor with hidden messages and motivations behind every joke. However, as time went on and comedy evolved, people learned to appreciate Heller's genius. Comedy today has evolved so much in the last 50 years since Catch 22 was released. Humor is subjective, and what the masses find funny is constantly evolving and changing, what people find funny does not. will never stay the same and there will never be one thing that everyone finds funny. Catch 22 was undoubtedly ahead of its time. People were turned off by crude humor and didn't care enough to find the deeper meaning and loneliness behind the humor. The book is also very anti-war, nowadays most people are actually opposed to war and even though people at the time of Catch 22's release didn't necessarily want to go to war, there was definitely a culture different in the pride and passion of the people. for our military than what we have today. This is one of the main reasons why, over time, the book becomes more and more popular and the messages it has hidden in front of our faces ring more and more true. Just compare one of the first reviews mentioned earlier to a.