Page 47 - The Language of Humour

34 THE SHOCK OF THE NEW
sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have
to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was
moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of
Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

Commentary

The paradox can be shown clearly if the logical connections in Catch-22
are spelt out:

1 can be grounded IF crazy AND ask to be grounded
2 IF ask to be grounded=not crazy
3 IF fly missions=crazy

The imposibility lies in the fact that there are two conditions that must
both be met in order to be grounded (1). These two conditions are then
said to be mutually exclusive, or contradictory (2): in other words it is
logically impossible—by the terms of Catch-22—to ever satisfy both
conditions. The final paradox (3) is that the authorities agree that it is
crazy to fly missions, but not crazy to want to stop. As with all humour,
the timing plays an important part. Although the paradox can be stated
very briefly, the dialogue moves step by step, so that the reader’s
apprehension of the absurdity of Catch-22 is drawn out as slowly as the
protagonist’s. The element of disguise is also important to humour. The
final paragraph, where Yossarian spells out the paradox, acts like a
punchline, where some of the pleasure often occurs because the
audience is marginally ahead of the teller.

Metaphor and simile
Another type of semantic incongruity occurs in metaphor or simile. It
may seem strange to class these as apparent contradictions. They do,
however, present quite different images. ‘O, my Luve’s like a red red
rose’ (Robert Burns) is a good example of a simile. These figures of
speech are an admired feature in literature. What makes their effect
humorous? It may be that the image is bizarre or awkwardly
incongruous:

Football is a cruel mistress, she’s more than a mistress, she’s a
wife, she’s a mother, she’s a daughter, she’s an errant child.
(Peter Cook as Alan Latchley)