Joseph Heller Novel

Black Humor is a kind of literary school firstly popular in 1960s and the beginning of 1970s and then spreading its effects to the West-Europe. As a humorous sentiment, absurd and even little short of being morbid, Black Humor is a mockery at itself with no alternative when in darkness and coldness, however, it is also an amusing laughter in the face of forcing threats from gallows. Its artistic characteristics lie in its absurd imagination, extremely exaggerating, satirizing and criticizing descriptions of figures and environments. Both of them embody the absurdity and coldness in today's West world. Joseph Heller (1923-1999) is one of the most important representatives of the school of Black Humor, and he is always mentioned in the same breath with Kurt Vonnegut (1922- ). In his novels, by using humor and mockery, Heller creates harmonies between absurdity and solemnness, between exaggeration and reality, and between farce and seriousness. His attitude of looking at this world jokingly with a cold and cynical humor gives his voice of resentments and protest against the actual world, which makes people think in shock and grieve in laughter. As a novelist and playwright, Joseph Heller did not produce a large number of works, but each is of comparatively high quality. Among them, his novels are more important, so the discussion of this thesis is based on them.This thesis, firstly, gives a systematical carding and summing-up of the translations and introductions of his works, thus puts forward an overall grasp of current situation of the studies on Heller. Secondly, it analyzes the effects of his experiences upon his novels creation in a comparatively specific way, and also discusses his views on creation and its close relationship with his life experience. All the analyses and discussions set his life story as the starting point. Thirdly, it discusses how his life experiences affect his choice of themes. His novels, with a visual angle of mocking at the whole American society, on one hand expose all kinds of ugly phenomena, and on the other manifest the living dilemma of modern people. These themes sweep from bureaucratic systems to powers, from money to horrors, and from...