Discussion 5 of 5
In detail, compare aspects of this novel to the other novel that you chose to read over the summer. Focus on various literary elements such as theme, mood, figurative language, tone, etc.
Respond often and in a timely manner. It is okay to post a response and then check back days later to see if anyone has responded to you or asked you a question. You will be able to (and expected to) respond to this post throughout the course of the summer.
In detail, compare aspects of this novel to the other novel that you chose to read over the summer. Focus on various literary elements such as theme, mood, figurative language, tone, etc.
Your responses should be approximately 50-words in length. Be sure to use textual evidence when appropriate. Going over the suggested word count or under that word count is acceptable as long as your response is detailed and direct. Be sure to read the “Scoring Rubric” before posting your response. Also, review your responses for correctness before posting.
Respond often and in a timely manner. It is okay to post a response and then check back days later to see if anyone has responded to you or asked you a question. You will be able to (and expected to) respond to this post throughout the course of the summer.
Simply click on "Comments" below to post your comment. Be sure to type your full name by clicking on the "Name/URL" option or login to your Google account and post your comment.
This novel and the other novel that I chose to read over the summer are similar in a few different aspects. First, they both show the effects that government and bureaucracy have on the people. In The Poisonwood Bible, the people of the newly independent Congo suffer at the hands of Joseph Mobutu. They are forbidden to speak out against the President and his belief of anti-colonial culture as they are arrested, starved, or murdered for doing so. Those who are not against the President work blindly for him and commit these atrocities to other people. The decisions that these people make and the things that may happen to them are essentially out of their hands and are decided by the government. Similarly, in Catch-22. the safety and wellbeing of the men in the squadron is not determined by them, as they wish it was. Their lives do not matter in the scheme of things. However, I believe that in The Poisonwood Bible, the natives of the Congo are less aware of the blatant disregard of the government. Also, the two novels are similar because of the loss of faith that occurs in them. The Price family, who travel to the Congo as missionaries, experience a loss of religious faith as they encounter drought, hunger, disease, and death within their family during their trip. In Catch-22, the chaplain questions his faith and whether religion is even necessary while he is with the army. The characters in both novels question their faith or lose it all together after they witness the things they see in Africa and in the army.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few similarities between the book I am reading over the summer, The Book Thief, and Catch 22. First of all, they are both set in World War II, but throughout The Book Thief you get to see a first hand account of what it's like for the people who are being controlled by Nazi Germany through Liesel. Liesel has a very hard life, she has been moved from her parents and is living with a foster family, she is constantly plagued by nightmares, which remind me of many of the men in Catch 22. Also in the Book Thief, a character named Hans is sent to Essen where he has to clean up after air raids, the connection between the two books here is that Yossarian was always apart of air raids when he flies his missions. There is a lot of death in The Book Thief like there is in Catch 22, but The Book Thief is much more emotional. When characters die you feel much more attached to them. I loved the Book Thief and enjoyed reading it much more than Catch 22. The Book Thief had a much deeper meaning and was much easier for me to follow than Catch 22. In all, both books had war, death, and destruction, but The Book Thief was a much easier read and a book that I couldn't put down once I started reading it.
ReplyDeleteCatch 22 and everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer were more similar than I could have thought possible. Both books were about the war although one was on the inside and one was on the out but both talked about the mental state of the people who had gone through it. Also both had unique themed of lust, lackluster and corruption within governments. Again books that make my head go in circles make me want to scream but hey, at least they made me think. Although EisI had higher rated reviews on the back ☺☺☺☺
ReplyDeleteMy other novel was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. As you all will see during my presentation on the book, I noted the theme was persevering in the face of a higher power. Although the biggest idea in the Catch 22 is that war is pointless, I believe the theme and the idea of perseverance is present in this novel as well. Yossarian spends most of the book continuing to fly more missions than he was originally supposed to in hopes of being sent home. In the end, both Yossarian and the main character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest made the ultimate decision to leave rather than suffer in the place they were in any longer. They both portrayed the idea of persevering in the face of suppressive power.
ReplyDeleteThe other book I read was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, like Meagan, and I really want to talk about how the theme of Madness was hit hard in both that book and Catch-22. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest is obviously a book about the mentally insane but throughout the book you discover there's a very fine line between what is really insane. For instance, McMurphy is constantly accused of not actually being crazy, but only admitting himself into the hospital to get away from the work he was doing on the farm. That leaves the reader to decide what their opinion is on his craziness. This is somewhat parallel to Yossarian's wish to be grounded for being crazy since he was told that because he wanted to be grounded he wasn't crazy anymore. This again leaves the reader to decide if he is actually crazy. Both of these characters could be deemed either way which shows the theme of insane and sane being very closely related and in some cases you can't tell which is which for a person.
ReplyDeleteThe book that I chose to read this summer was The Book Thief. There are many similar aspects of this book and the one I chose. First WWII is incorporated in both books. Second both sets of characters have to deal with loss. But the loss of the characters in my book I emotional took harder than the ones in this book. I believe this is because I was more emotional attached to them. Also I fell in love with my book. This book took longer for me to read just because I could really "attach" to it. Another thing is that my book was about a German girl and this book was about the American military, I could see that not only did this war hurt the Americans but it also hurt the Germans. One of the themes in my book was war where the overall meaning of this book was war and how useless it was. I just found a lot of similarities as I found differences in both.
ReplyDeleteI also read One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as my other book. I agree with Destiny and Meagan on the themes of power and madness being shown through both Catch-22 and Cuckoo's nest but I think the theme that stood out the most between both books was manipulation. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest you see the theme of Manipulation in almost every character, mostly with Nurse Ratched and how she continued to mistreat and manipulate all the patients into staying in the hospital for longer than they needed too. When McMurphy got upset that all of the guys were voluntarily staying in the hospital, Nurse Ratched quickly chimed in with her manipulation of making all the men think they needed to stay there. In Catch-22 a big part in the manipulation is when Carthcart continuously raises the number of missions the soldiers have to complete in order to get out of the war. He is manipulating them to the point where they have to stay in the war longer than any other squadron because he wants to be deemed better than any other squadron leader (which goes back to Meagan's point in the theme of power). Another showing of Manipulation is the whole point of the book, the Catch-22 where you can't be grounded unless you're crazy but if you want to be grounded you aren't crazy anymore. That is complete manipulation to make all of the soldiers stay in the war and fight. As you can tell both books have strong connections to the theme of manipulation and that's why I chose that theme to talk about.
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