What the hell was Heller up to? This is a simple, but daunting question. In the 1961 novel Catch 22 Joseph Heller mocked not only the US Army but the entire human race. He often emphasized how there was a lot of disorientation in the army and how nine times out of ten no one knew what was happening. Heller being the former veteran, he probably had some experiences without knowing what was going on. He himself flew 60 missions and was a bombardier like the main character of the novel centered on Captain John Yossarian. Yossarian is the protagonist of the novel and is focused exclusively on himself. Heller uses copious amounts of satire to tell his story and explain the dismay in the military. He uses a lot of comic allusions to make people's names mean different things, for example Lieutenant Scheisskopf actually means shithead, and Lieutenant Colonel Korn's name doesn't necessarily have a meaning like Scheisskopf's but his name still has a symbolism embedded in it. . Heller has a twisted sense of humor and the way he told his story made you laugh and often think of people who reminded you of the characters. Not only does he use comedic allusions to tell his story, but he often uses dark humor in instances you wouldn't think are funny. Some of the dark humor Heller uses may be offensive to some, but others may see it as comic relief. Throughout the novel Yossarian is trying to "get grounded" so he can go home but there is always a problem, Catch 22. Catch 22 is a dead-end situation, every time Yossarian tries to being grounded the doctor always brings out this plug. He appeared several times throughout the storyline and seemed to follow Yossarian wherever he went. You could see... middle of the paper... the example of dark humor in his novel is right at the beginning, when Yossarian is in the hospital and he's censoring all the letters and at one point he gets so bored censoring them that he starts writing Washington Irving on his letters and when he gets bored he starts writing Irving Washington. This is just another example of how monotonous the military can get while you sit in the hospital and censor letters to make sure no information gets leaked. So what the hell was Joseph Heller doing? Well, it was showing all the things that were wrong with the military in the 1940s. He wanted to underline all the disorientation present in the army. He also uses a lot of satire because it obviously makes everything better. So everything in Heller was mocking the US military and the human race at the same time.