Representation of time: A stylistic analysis of real and surreal elements in Joseph Heller's "Catch 22".
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Date
2009
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Abstract
Surrealism is a movement that derives from psychology and embraces widely disparate
genres such as art and literature. It has been defined as pure psychic automatism, by
which one proposes to express either verbally, in writing or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. In other words it is dictation of thoughts in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation; for example, as seen in dreams. According to Freud, dreams can be analysed through free association to bring to surface desires and longings suppressed in the subconscious and unconscious. The suppression of desires leads to neurosis. Surrealist painters absorbed the notion of idiosyncrasy in Freudian psychoanalysis while rejecting the underlying madness or darkness of the mind. Painters, such as Salvador Dali, are described as surreal because of the juxtaposition of the abstract and concrete in the form of disturbing and incongruous images in their paintings. This kind of depiction has come to be accepted as a characteristic style of surrealism. In literature, surreal writers have expressed a disdain for literal meanings given to objects and focused on the undertones, the poetic undercurrent that infuses their writing with an uncanny, eerie spirit. Surreal writers seldom organise the thoughts and images that they present and most people find it difficult to understand or analyse their writings.
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Catch 22 - Stylistic analysis, Heller, Joseph, 1923-1999. Catch 22, Time, Stylistic analysis, Surrealism in literature, Realism in literature, Catch 22 - Stylistic analysis