StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

Literature - Satirical Archetypes - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
Date Satirical Archetypes Satirical archetypes are utilized in both Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller to illustrate the need for societal and individual improvement or change. Both books were written in the 1960’s and both offer constructive social criticism in juxtaposition with the somewhat mundane lives of the main characters…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER96.6% of users find it useful
Literature - Satirical Archetypes
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Literature - Satirical Archetypes"

Download file to see previous pages

During a time where emotions ran high and people chose sides with vehemence, the satirical element within both works serves as an archetype for the transcendent nature the War posed upon society at large. The social criticism, then, serves to illustrate the mundanity of a quiet life versus the extremity of international conflict and the social constructs that are destroyed when the incomprehensible occurs. Both Heller and Vonnegut are sardonic artists in their usage of satirical elements, penning the satire almost as an outside narrator, poised to enhance the words of the literal narrators with critique and sarcasm within the historical context of an international conflict.

The satirical element within Cat’s Cradle is the storytelling itself. From the narrator’s focus on writing a novel about what ‘important’ Americans were doing on the day that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima to the fictional society that he travels to explore the secret formula for ice-nine, a compound that turns water into ice at room temperature. Even the literal use of the term ‘cat’s cradle’ penned as the title of the work is a satirical element founded on the narrator’s focus, a man called Felix Hoenikker, who was playing a game of cat’s cradle when the atom-bomb that he helped co-create is dropped.

The grand metaphor is highlighted by the simplistic and low-strategy game that is cat’s cradle where the main individual is trapped until the partner can create the desired shapes. Even this moment, the quiet game of cat’s cradle satirizes Felix’s position within the international conflict as an ‘important’ person during the Vietnam War. In Catch-22, Heller utilizes the shifting chronology of third person narration to define the timeline of events within a nation rocked by the events of World War II.

The phrase itself, ‘catch-22,’ is loosely defined as a problem that can never be solved because of inherent problems within the circumstance itself; a no-win situation. The narrator himself explains that catch-22 applies, for certain at least, in military conflicts where they are trapped within a form of circular logic wherein “there was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind” (Heller, 56).

The narrator goes on to comment that his companion was crazy to fly missions and absolutely insane if he didn’t, but “if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to” (56). To exist outside the rational would entail his protection, but to be of rational thought would indicate his essential purpose within the mission itself. This form of circular logic, the catch-22, is perhaps the largest utilization of satire within the novel itself. For, to define a conflict as one of circular logic, where the rational leads to the insane and back again without resolution, is to look upon the confines of current social mores and mock the attitudes of those who have no understanding of the international conflict at hand.

More, just as Cat’s Cradle utilizes the metaphor of the literal cat’s cradle to illustrate the juxtaposition of the mundanity of ‘

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Literature - Satirical Archetypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/literature/1450191-cat-s-cradle-and-catch
(Literature - Satirical Archetypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words)
https://studentshare.org/literature/1450191-cat-s-cradle-and-catch.
“Literature - Satirical Archetypes Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/literature/1450191-cat-s-cradle-and-catch.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Literature - Satirical Archetypes

American Literature

The writer of the essay "American literature" suggests that in Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables, Clifford was framed by his cousin, Jaffrey Pyncheon Junior, and accused of the murder of his Uncle Jaffrey Pyncheon Senior.... American literature Compare and contrast the positions on civil rights taken by Fredrick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.... Douglass campaigned for the abolition in his literature, in the way Chametzky said; 'Creative literature, however, was the exception with them; an embattled people used literature as a weapon, as propaganda; not as exploration, but as expose of injustice....
2 Pages (500 words) Literature review

Feminism and the Portrayal of Postmodernist Woman

An author of the literature review seeks to critically address the representation of postfeminist women in mass media and popular culture, specifically television and music.... Moreover, the writer seeks to address existing misconceptions concerning the issue.... hellip; In recent years the idea that feminism is over and that the goals of feminism have all been achieved has become increasingly popular in mainstream culture....
11 Pages (2750 words) Literature review

Childrens Literature in the Victorian Period

The following paper under the title 'Children's literature in the Victorian Period' gives detailed information about children's literature which is presented during the past one hundred years, due largely to a changing social idea of childhood and what it means.... Children's literature as a recognized genre didn't truly begin until sometime around the mid-1800s.... There was a “veritable explosion of information about this period of physiological and cognitive development in human beings” and literature became “a central vehicle for expressing ideas about the self and its history” (Steedman 5)....
11 Pages (2750 words) Literature review

The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

The paper 'The Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table' presents the legend that has followed the Western European civilizations throughout the centuries beginning sometime prior to 1100 A.... .... Although the legend changed and developed throughout time.... hellip; This story itself was developed utilizing many sources existing in Malory's day including numerous Norman-French romances and an English alliterative epic entitled “Morte Arthur”....
10 Pages (2500 words) Literature review

Frankenstein and Conrads Heart of Darkness

Frye's argument is that this narrative is included in almost all of the archetypes used in our literature and that these attempts are also found within our most sacred ritual events as we continue to seek the true nature of the order of life.... Considering Northrop Frye's discussion of myth, ritual and the natural cycle as it is presented in “The archetypes of Literature,” it can be seen that there are several rituals and beliefs that we experience in modern life that we are perhaps not even aware of as being a voluntary affirmation of the natural order of life, such as the beliefs we associate with the concept of darkness....
11 Pages (2750 words) Literature review

Carl Jung's Concept of Individuation

If the necessary conditions are present, these archetypes are received and integrated into consciousness.... The paper “Carl Jung's Concept of Individuation” summarizes the philosopher's idea that everybody should get hold of the first stage (the shadow) and the second (anima/animus) before getting to the third stage (the Self)....
9 Pages (2250 words) Literature review

History of Psychology

The paper "History of Psychology " describes Jung's archetypes, three components in the form of the ego, collective unconscious and personal unconscious, Crime, and Watson's Behaviorist Theory developed for identification of the factors that result in the development of humans' criminal behavior....
5 Pages (1250 words) Literature review

Anthony Vidlers Third Typology

Typological thoughts are a way of thinking that does refer to neither age nor place.... The paper "Anthony Vidler's Third Typology" introduces the reader to a series of subsequent typologies in history that serves to legitimize the evolution of architecture.... hellip; In the renowned essay by Vidler “The Third Typology,” there is a definite distinction between three types of architecture and urban typologies....
11 Pages (2750 words) Literature review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us