As Daniel R. White writes in Nietzsche at the Altar: Situating the Devout, “To laugh at the literal behavior of other characters in the social drama is to change the truth . value of what these characters do to undermine its seriousness, its claim to truthfulness, to authority, and thus call it into question. According to White, once we are able to laugh at something, we disarm it and become free to question its authority and reject it. The effect of laughter described by White is the effect that Joseph Heller and Stanley Kubrick intended to evoke in their respective satires, Catch-22 and Dr. Strangelove. The war context in each of these works has led many critics to classify them as part of the war genre. This classification is erroneous, however, because the worlds described by Heller and Kubrick are not horrible because of war, but rather because individuals are subject to the arbitrary authority of an impersonal and all-powerful bureaucracy that does not understand them. not and does not care about them. In Catch-22, Heller depicts bureaucracy through the eyes of his protagonist, Yossarian, who realizes that the control that the bureaucracy, represented by his ambitious and impersonal superiors, exercises over his life is arbitrary. In Dr. Strangelove, the bureaucracy is represented by General Ripper, who orders a massive nuclear strike which, if successful, will trigger the Soviet doomsday device and create a nuclear holocaust, and by General Turgidson, who urges President Muffley to fully commit to nuclear power. war. The individual fighting against the bureaucracy is Mandrake, who challenges Ripper's authority and works to avert impending nuclear catastrophe. The fact that bureaucracy is the subject of examination and criticism in each novel is also evidenced in an assessment of the satirical techniques employed. Through their depiction of a bureaucratic system in which individuals are entirely subject to the arbitrary authority of their detached superiors and their satirical techniques, Kubrick and Heller inspire individuals to recognize the horror and laugh at the absurdities, not at war, but bureaucracy. system that they seek to “question”. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Although many critics have classified Catch-22 and Dr. Strangelove as war genre works, this categorization is fundamentally flawed for neither work contains the salient attributes of works that fit this classification. In War and the Novelist: Appraising the American War Novel, Peter G. Jones observes: "Collectively, the books [in the war genre] emphasize individual reconciliation with the ordeal of combat and adaptation to general pressures of war, recording immediate responses and varieties of accommodations. » (Jones 4). Based on this definition, derived from analyzes of the most widely recognized war genre works, the thematic similarity lies in their focus on the psychological effects of combat on the individual and the means by which the individual copes with this stress. The lack of vivid descriptions of combat indicates that neither Catch-22 nor Dr. Strangelove is talking about "individual reconciliation with the ordeal of combat." Instead, both Heller and Kubrick focus on depicting the characters that make up the bureaucracy. As Heller himself said: “The war in Catch-22 didn't interest me. I was interested in personal relationships within bureaucratic authority” (Merill 16). Thus, the horror of the worlds depicted by Kubrick and Heller does not comeof war but of the fact that individuals are completely subject to the arbitrary authority of an impersonal, omnipotent and inaccessible bureaucracy. In Dr. Strangelove, individuals are subject to the authority of impersonal and arbitrary bureaucrats who, isolated from the realities of war, render them incapable of understanding the implications of their actions. In Dr. Strangelove, General Ripper and General Turgidson are able to advocate nuclear war because of their detachment from war. General Turgidson's reliance on the Big Board, a computerized monitor located in the war room, to assess progress underscores his isolation from the emotional realities of war. As Randy Rasmussen notes, "General Turgidson's beloved Big Board is a glorified movie screen that gives him a simplified, abstract, manageable sense of nuclear war, very different from the messy realities we encounter outside its borders » (Rasmussen 3). For Turgidson, war is nothing more than a game and soldiers are not human lives, but numbers. Turgidson's inability to understand the realities of war becomes evident when he and the other advisors rejoice after the Big Board shows the bombers responding to the recall code. In fact, the celebrations are premature because the Big Board does not reflect the reality experienced by Major Kong and his crew aboard a slightly damaged B-52 bomber, but still in flight and which has not received the code of reminder. Turgidson's detachment from the realities of war allows him to advocate total commitment: “'I'm not saying we wouldn't ruffle our feathers. But I say no more than ten to twenty million killed, maximum – depending on the ruptures” (Maland 708). Turgidson is willing to sacrifice a few million people because he has no personal connection to them and is unable to view them as humans. This incident allows Kubrick to successfully show the inherent problem with bureaucracy, namely that because its members are detached and have no personal connection to the individuals whose lives they affect, they cannot comprehend the implications of their pleas. Like Turgidson, General Ripper advocates nuclear war because it is insulated from the realities of war. Throughout Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick uses various camera techniques to emphasize that General Ripper is a typical bureaucrat who controls affairs and individuals from a distance. Before introducing Ripper for the first time, Kubrick films Captain Mandrake hard at work in a busy room with other people. Kubrick then cuts to Ripper, who is sitting alone behind a desk. The series of cuts that follow between Ripper and Mandrake serve to contrast Mandrake, who experiences the war quite directly, and Ripper, who is distant and isolated. By closing the blinds on his office window, Ripper symbolically severs his last connection with the outside world. As Rasmussen notes, “protected from…the ordeal of his troops by the blinded windows, he is able to maintain his illusion of a justified nuclear war” (Rasmussen 25, 26). While the troops experience the war on a personal level because they are the ones fighting and risking their lives, Ripper experiences the war behind his desk. Ripper is not personally affected by the war and therefore cannot understand "the ordeal of his troops." It is Ripper's lack of understanding of the effects of his actions and his detachment that allows him to order, support, and justify the nuclear strike. Dr. Strangelove's problem, then, is not the war itself, but rather the bureaucratic system that allows detachments of , impersonal individuals to exercise absolute authority over the lives of their subordinates with whom they cannotidentify yourself. The extent of Ripper's authority over the personnel of Burpleson Air Force Base becomes evident when Ripper confiscates all the private radios. By confiscating the radios, Ripper cuts their connection to the outside world and the chain of command above him. Kubrick thus sets up a microcosm of bureaucratic society in which individuals report only to their direct superiors and are denied access to the chain of command above their superiors. Because Ripper's power is unchecked, he is able to control and shape the perceptions of his subordinates. As Rasmussen notes: “From inside his ivory tower, General Ripper imposes his fictional vision of the outside world on all bases via the mechanism of an intercom. His voice rings divine through Burpleson as his subordinates carry out his orders” (Rasmussen 14). Ripper announces that the Soviets have launched a nuclear attack that has crippled Washington and orders Burpleson's security troops to seal off the base. Ripper's control is so extensive that even when the troops see that the advancing army is wearing American uniforms, the security troops accept Ripper's word as truth and determine that the uniforms must be stolen. The evils of bureaucracy are evident as Burpleson's security troops are forced to repress their own thoughts and senses to obey the orders of their superior officer. Thus, Kubrick shows how the bureaucratic system causes individuals to lose control of their own lives and submit them to the whims of their detached superiors. The detrimental effects of the hierarchical structure of bureaucracy and the extent to which individuals are rendered powerless are even more evident in Mandrake's experiments. Mandrake discovers that Ripper has overstepped his authority, but he is powerless to do anything because it is unacceptable for a subordinate to challenge a superior. Even when Ripper admits to Mandrake that the Soviets did not attack, Mandrake must “maintain a formal appearance of respect for the general” (Rasmussen 16). Kubrick depicts the power imbalance in the relationship by filming Ripper with an extremely low close-up that makes him appear larger and more powerful. Mandrake's helplessness becomes evident when Ripper discovers his gun, thus asserting his power and authority to restore the pecking order. Even when Ripper commits suicide and Mandrake cracks the recall code, Mandrake cannot avoid disaster as he meets Colonel "Bat" Guano of the US Army. When Mandrake explains the situation to him, Guano “finds… inconceivable that an individual… of such modest military rank would have to speak to the highest government authority” (39). In the bureaucratic system of which Guano is a part, it is unthinkable that a subordinate such as Mandrake would have access to the president. Although Mandrake ultimately succeeded in contacting the president, his trials underscore the futility of protest as well as the inaccessibility of the bureaucratic structure. The expectation of obedience leaves disgruntled individuals like Mandrake without recourse. Thus, the problem in the world described by Kubrick is not the war itself, but the extent to which the bureaucratic system renders the individual powerless to control his own life or to make changes. Similarly to Mandrake, Yossarian's predicament in Catch-22 stems from the distant and impersonal bureaucracy waging the war. In Catch-22, the bureaucrats who wage the war experience the war through aerial photographs, an impersonal medium. When discussing an upcoming mission, Colonel Korn explains: "We don't worry about the damroad…Colonel Cathcart wants to come out of this mission with a good, clear aerial photograph that he will not be ashamed to send through the canals” ( Heller 338). Korn's statements highlight the gap between the reality experienced by soldiers and that of officers at higher levels of the bureaucracy. Unlike soldiers, who experience the horrors of war on emotional and physical levels, officers experience war on impersonal and aesthetic levels through aerial photographs and forms that do not always give officers an accurate conception of reality. . This becomes evident when Doc Daneeka is declared dead because his name appears on the flight log of a crashed plane. Although Doc Daneeka was not actually on the plane and is therefore alive, he "realizes that, for all intents and purposes, he [is] really dead" (Heller 355) because the forms say that he is dead and the forms shape reality. It doesn't matter that he is biologically alive, because in bureaucratic society, Heller represents forms and paperwork determines the existence of individuals and "one dying boy is as good as another" (Heller 192). Officers do not view soldiers as individuals. It is because of this indifference that Colonel Cathcart views the deaths of twelve soldiers as an opportunity to send twelve more letters and move closer to having his name published in the Saturday Evening Post (Heller 292). The problem with bureaucracy is that it is made up of individuals who are too detached and impersonal to understand the effects of their actions on the individuals under them. As in Dr. Strangelove, the detachment from the bureaucracy in Catch-22 is problematic because of the extent to which individuals in bureaucratic society must yield to their omnipotent superiors who make up the bureaucracy. Jones notes, “in bureaucratic society…people are trained to surrender their human prerogatives to processes and situations” (Jones 51). In Catch-22, the bureaucracy seeks to dominate the lives of individuals by blocking individual thought. In order to ensure its dominance, the group's headquarters institutes rules that prohibit soldiers from questioning official policy (Heller 44). These rules allow the group's headquarters to force young men "to give their lives for the ideals, aspirations, and idiosyncrasies of the older men [who make up the bureaucracy]" (Heller 227). The bureaucracy must inhibit individual thought and encourage mass conformity to ensure that its authority is not challenged. The bureaucracy's success in stifling individual thought is evident when Dobbs seeks Yossarian's approval for his plan to kill Colonel Cathcart: "'You don't have to tell me to go Before. Just tell me it's a good idea. All right? Is this a good idea?' » (Heller 237). Bureaucracy has stripped Dobbs of his autonomy and capacity for individual thought, making him docile to the point that he can no longer act independently. Bureaucratic society controls not only the thought processes of its constituents, but also their physical beings. This is evident when Chaplain Tappman is apprehended by Captain Black and taken to the group's headquarters, where he is falsely accused of insubordination. While being questioned, Chaplain Tappman realizes the power of bureaucracy: “They could do whatever they wanted to him,” he realized; these brutal men could beat him to death in the basement and no one would intervene to save him” (Heller 391). When Tappman realizes that no one can "step in to save him", it is a recognition of the horror of an uncontrolled society that deprives individualsof their autonomy and subjects them to the authority of their detached superiors who have little concern for their well-being. -being. The extent to which bureaucratic authority is arbitrary and inaccessible to the individuals subject to it is further illustrated by Yossarian's experiences. After Snowden's death, Yossarian begins to think about his situation and realizes that "aliens he doesn't know are shooting cannons at him every time he flies into the air to drop bombs on them." (Heller 26). ). As Yossarian reflects on his situation, he realizes that he is only fighting in the war because he was ordered to do so. Yossarian is not willing to risk his life for no reason, so he decides not to submit to arbitrary orders. He wants the bureaucracy to justify his seemingly arbitrary demands, but when he attends the briefings and starts asking questions, they are refused (Heller 44). As Colonel Cathcart continues to arbitrarily increase the number of missions, Yossarian becomes increasingly fed up with the bureaucratic system and tries to speak directly to Major Major, but Major Major avoids Yossarian by sneaking through his window (Heller 112 ). This scene and Major Major's subsequent decision not to see anyone while in his office (Heller 117) illustrate the inaccessibility of bureaucracy. The system is clear in that it exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of individuals, but it is inaccessible to these individuals and therefore protected from any protest or questioning. No longer willing to meekly submit to the all-powerful bureaucracy, Yossarian resists by staying in the hospital for long periods of time, refusing to wear his uniform, randomly dropping his bombs, refusing to carry out other missions and finally running away. When Major Danby seeks to force Yossarian back into the system by telling him that running away is not a good way to solve his problems, "Yossarian patiently explains to Major Danby that the escapees, the real escapees, are the ones who allow for the malicious bureaucracy to flee. direct their lives; the strong man chooses to live on his own terms” (Jones 47). Thus, Yossarian's predicament and the problem that Heller describes in Catch-22 is not war, but the impersonal and inaccessible bureaucracy that exerts excessive control over the lives of individuals and deprives them of their independence, while refusing to justify his apparently arbitrary authority. Running away is Yossarian's way of escaping the omnipresent bureaucracy and regaining control of his own life. The idea that Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and Heller's Catch-22 focus on the powerlessness and subjugation of individuals in a detached, arbitrary, and omnipotent bureaucracy, rather than war, is supported by an analysis of the structure and stylistic techniques employed in each novel. Joseph J. Waldmeir notes of the structure of Catch-22: "Truly plotless, the book is unified by the pattern of absurdity established from the beginning...In the face of a chaotic structure and the endless repetition of episodes that , individually, are often quite funny…one begins to think that [the novel] would have been better if it had been done better” (Waldmeir 163). The disjointed structure is not accidental, however, and Catch-22 would not be better with a more unified plot because by obscuring the storyline, Heller draws the reader's attention to the satirical aspect of the book, which is just as important as the 'plot. In Catch-22 and Dr. Strangelove, the plot depicts bureaucratic society and satire is used to deconstruct and criticize it. As Leo Braudy explains, "satire constantly asks the viewer to compare whatthat happens with a recognizable reality” (Braudy 59). Thus, while satire consists of hyperbolic exaggeration, the object of satire is represented through plot and therefore there is a recognizable reality to which the analyst can refer. Thus, with satire, Heller and Kubrick systematically describe the laughable absurdities of bureaucratic society and deconstruct the system. In Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick uses various techniques to encourage the viewer to laugh and reject bureaucracy. While Dr. Strangelove was initially intended to be a film based on the serious book Red Alert, as Kubrick wrote the screenplay he realized he had to leave out things "that were either absurd or paradoxical in order to to avoid it being funny. » (Philips 89), he therefore decides to write “an absurd black comedy and an allegorical satire, populated by caricatures rather than fully developed characters” (Philips 15). Kubrick's deliberate decision to make the film satirical is important because it indicates that satire conveys meanings essential to deciphering the film's message. The film's humor is evident from the start. In the opening scene, the refueling of a bomber denotes a sexual act and the refueling rod becomes a phallic symbol as the camera moves back and forth. Humor is also evident in Kubrick's names for General Jack D. Ripper and General "Buck" Turgidson as well as Burpleson Air Force Base. When the spectator laughs at Kubrick's satire, he recognizes the absurdities of bureaucratic society, he mocks this society and symbolically rejects it. As Bakhtin explains, laughter constitutes a rejection because “laughter destroys fear and piety in front of an object, in front of a world, by making it a familiar object of contact and thus opening the ground for an absolutely free investigation into it. . » (Craig 76-77). Thus, the satire increases the criticism of bureaucratic society that Kubrick expresses in the plot. Throughout Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick not only satirizes the world he depicts in general, but frequently employs satire to describe Ripper and Turgidson because Kubrick wants the reader to laugh at these characters who embody the bureaucratic system. As Ripper tells Mandrake about Plan R, Kubrick uses an extremely low close-up to emphasize the phallic cigar protruding from between Ripper's lips (Falsetto 29). When Ripper speaks with this phallic cigar coming out of his mouth, the viewer can't help but laugh at him. The satire that Kubrick uses to portray Ripper prevents the viewer from taking Ripper or the values ​​he represents seriously. This phallic image is not arbitrary as it relates to Ripper's justification for ordering the execution of Plan R, according to which his "decreasing sexual potency...[stems] from an international communist conspiracy to poison the water." drinkable” (Philips xix). In this scene, Ripper undermines the validity of his justification for the war and the seriousness of his own character because his theory is patently absurd and laughable and underlines his folly. Phallic imagery and bureaucracy are intertwined and jointly satirized later when Ripper pulls a phallic gun from a golf bag to defend himself against approaching troops. The phallic nature of the weapon reminds the viewer of Ripper's absurd theory and the golf bag reminds the viewer of Ripper's connection to bureaucracy. Kubrick mocks that for bureaucrats like Ripper, war, like golf, is nothing more than a game because it is their subordinates, not them, who are personally affected. Turgidson embodies the bureaucratic system in the same way as Ripper, heis therefore also an object of satire. The prominently displayed phallic cigar that prevents Ripper from being taken seriously when he speaks is replaced for Turgidson by farcical facial contortions, which Kubrick carefully emphasizes. camera shots. Even when Turgidson doesn't speak, he can't be taken seriously because his behavior is comparable to that of an immature boy: he chews his gum obnoxiously, pouts when President Muffley rejects his plan, triggers a wrestling match with the Russian ambassador and gesticulates wildly while describing his behavior. with glee how the remaining bomber can survive and trigger the Doomsday Device. By inciting the reader to laugh at Ripper and Turgidson, Kubrick "changes the truth value of what these characters [represent] in such a way as to undermine [their] seriousness, [their] claim to...authority, and thus to call them ] in question” (White). Thus, by satirizing Ripper and Turgidson, Kubrick undermines their seriousness and authority and therefore the seriousness and authority of the bureaucratic system they represent. The laughter induced by Kubrick's satire is therefore a form of rejection because it signifies a recognition of the absurdities of the bureaucratic system. In Catch-22, the narrative techniques employed by Heller are also essential to his critique of bureaucratic society. In Catch-22, the chaotic structure is not accidental, but is an intentional mechanism designed to force the reader to look beyond the plot. Heller doesn't want the reader to just analyze the plot; he wants the reader to analyze the satirical techniques that make the book unique. Heller's satire appears most often in his descriptions of the officers who make up the upper echelons of the bureaucracy or the politicians of the bureaucracy. Heller mocks the inefficiency of bureaucratic society through his satirical depiction of the Glorious Pledge Crusade, a campaign launched by Captain Black to seek revenge on Major Major for stealing his promotion. Heller writes: “The Glorious Pledge Crusade was a glorious pain in the ass, because it complicated their task of organizing crews for each combat mission. Men were attached all over the squadron to sign, pledge and sing, and missions took hours to get going. Effective emergency action became impossible, but... Captain Black... scrupulously enforced the doctrine of "continuous reaffirmation"..., a doctrine designed to trap all those men who had become disloyal since the last time they signed an oath of loyalty the day before” (Heller 124). ). The glorious crusade of the loyalty oath and continued reaffirmation are meant to serve as microcosms of the bureaucracy's ineffective and wasteful policies. While Black tries to make Major Major look bad by not allowing him to sign a loyalty oath, and thus making him appear disloyal, ironically, it is Black who allows his petty squabbles to hinder the effort of war. The satire is obvious because the These policies are doomed to failure in that they are supposed to help the war effort by ensuring loyalty, but in reality they harm it by preventing the organization of crews. Additionally, the reader can't help but laugh at the Continuous Reaffirmation because it is absurd to think that it could actually eliminate disloyal soldiers and that the soldiers would become disloyal overnight. Although the example itself is extreme and absurd, Heller's satire is effective because the reader recognizes that this example serves as a microcosm and references the reality of bureaucratic inefficiency. By making the reader laugh, Heller draws the reader's attention to this.