the catch-22

    People claim to have read Catch-22 without "getting" what the catch was. Joseph Heller explains it plainly--perhaps the people who missed the meaning thought that he was joking, or having his character joke for him. The main character in the novel wants to get out of the army, so he tries to pretend that he is insane. The army will discharge him ( let him go ) if it finds that he is crazy. The problem is, the army psychiatrists tell the character that it would be crazy to want to be in the army. So since he obviously wants to get out of the army, he must be perfectly okay, mentally. So you can't get out of the army by claiming to be crazy, because it's perfectly rational to want to get out of the army--you might get shot, after all.