On The "heller" Uncertainty

Joseph Heller is a noticeable American writer. His representative work Catch-22 is reputed as"The Epic of the Sixties". Catch-22 is an excellent postmodernist work which has attracted much critical attention and praise. This thesis aims to display the indeterminacy which is one of the major aesthetic characteristics of postmodern fiction in Catch-22. Indeterminacy represents the result of the disappearance of center and of ontology which fits to the spirits of postmodernism——clearing up center and dispelling all the order and constitute. This thesis includes five chapters. Chapter one focuses on the definition of indeterminacy, background of indeterminacy, and ways of its presentation. Chapter two analyzes the indeterminacy in the language of the novel from several aspects such as ambiguity, paradoxical language. Chapter three concentrates on the indeterminacy in character. Chapter four and five discuss the indeterminacy in plot and theme respectively. In the end, the author reaches the conclusion that Catch-22 is a typical postmodernist novel which is full of indeterminacy.