Abstract:Joseph Heller’s novel catch 22 is a well-known piece of works featured by black humor. It successfully reflects people’s emotions after World War Ⅱ. Moreover, its significance has been beyond war field and has extended to the whole society of America. Up to the present day, criticism of Joseph Heller’s novel catch 22 relates to almost all-around approaches, including criticism on the absurd theme, anti-hero and artistic features, etc. However, I would like to analyze the device of paradox in this novel based on my deepest feelings after reading this novel. Although this criticism approach has also been adopted, which mainly discusses paradox on the basis of its categories, I intend to elaborate my thoughts in a different way.
Therefore, I will focus on the uses of paradox related to the elements of a novelcharacters, plots and language expressions. As for the uses of paradox in characters, I will concentrate on the contradictions of personalities, and the double identity of the hero. Through the analysis of the paradoxical elements within some of the characters, I intend to discover the essence of the war events in the novel and build the close relations between characters and the theme expressed by the author. While the analysis of paradox in plots will be extended from two aspects, one of which will be focused on the contradictions among a series of plots developed through the novel, and the other one will be focused on the same plot inside which there exist absolute conflicts. By means of interpreting plots involving paradox, I will go a step further to dig out the values among the special plot arrangements by the author. And when it comes to the uses of paradox in language expressions, I would like to expound my ideas through the language items spoken by the characters as well as those organized only by the author to see how well those paradoxical language items have played their roles in exposing the truths and deepen the theme through the novel.
Apart from what I have mentioned above, I will also make some overall interpretations, which deal with the paradoxical effects caused by the tragic and comic elements inside black humor. So my following paper will include four parts: brief introduction to Joseph Heller and his novel Catch 22, review of paradox and black humor, paradox and black humor in Catch 22, and conclusion.
Key words：catch 22, paradox, character, plot, language, black humor
摘要:美国作家约瑟夫海勒的小说《第二十二条军规》是黑色幽默小说的典范，国内外学者针对该小说的研究涵盖了各个方面，而我的论文是基于悖论的艺术手法而展开的。
我的论文将从小说的某些要素出发，分别阐述悖论在小说人物构造，小说情节设置以及小说语言设计三个方面的作用。在阐述人物塑造过程中的悖论手法时，我主要通过分析小说人物性格中存在的悖论，以及小说主人公双重身份所产生的悖论来达到我的目的；而在小说情节设置上所要进行的悖论分析是通过分析小说中某些情节的前后矛盾以及某些特定情节本身的内在冲突来展开；最后是关于小说语言设计上的悖论手法分析，首先我将以小说中人物本身的话语为分析文本，其次从作者的角度来观察整篇小说的语言设计中所存在的悖论元素。
除此之外，我也会对小说黑色幽默中悲喜剧元素杂糅所产生的悖论效果进行解读和分析。所以，我的论文将主要由以下四个部分组成：第一章是作者和小说的简介；第二章是悖论和黑色幽默的综述；第三章则讨论悖论在小说人物塑造，情节设置以及语言设计上的运用和效果，以及探讨小说黑色幽默内在的基于悲剧和喜剧元素杂糅而产生的悖论以及悖论在小说黑色幽默中的独特气质；第四章是文章的总结部分。
关键词：《第二十二条军规》，悖论，人物，情节，语言，黑色幽默
