I. Black Humour

1. definition: to deal with tragic things in comic ways to make it more powerful and more tragic.

It refers to the use of morbid and absurd for darkly comic purpose. It carries the tone of anger, bitterness in the grotesque situation of suffering, anxiety, and death. It makes the reader laugh at the blackness of modern life. The writers usually do not laugh at the characters.

2. Features

(1) Comic way to express tragic situations

(2) Creation of anti-hero

(3) Illogical narrative structure

3. Joseph Heller

(1) Life

(2) Catch-22

It is not only a war novel, but also a novel about people’s life in peaceful time. This novel attacked the dehumanization of all contemporary institutions and corruptions of individuals who gain power in institutions. Armed-forces are the most outrageous example of the two evils.

Language: circular conversation, wrenched cliché