The Effects of Catch 22, by Joseph Heller

In literature sometimes a character can be helped or hindered by the economic, social, or political conditions of the day. In the novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, the character Doc Daneeka illustrates this idea perfectly because the conditions surrounding him greatly hindered him. Catch 22 takes place during WWII on an island named Pianosa that is close to Italy. Doc Daneeka is adversely affected by the war in the end because when it began he was …

…by the conditions of his time it was defiantly Doc Daneeka. Throughout the novel the doctor lists all of his grievances about his conditions with his catch phrase, 'If you think you've got problems . . . '. The doctor lost everything he had and all of his potential because of the war, and he is left at the end of the novel as a dead man that is really alive, which is just another example of Catch 22.