Making something happen: Joseph Heller's moral vision in Catch-22, Something happened, and Good as gold.

Abstract

Moral criticism's subjectivity makes it problematic to use in evaluating any novel. Using it to evaluate fiction by contemporary authors like Joseph Heller is even more difficult because these authors employ narrative techniques which make it difficult for readers to identify their values. By using "value objects" to identify the world view of a novel's "moral standard" character, and by using that world view to judge the protagonist's values, the moral critic can establish whether or not an author is a moral writer. In Catch-22, Joseph Heller sets forth his moral hypothesis. Yossarian must learn from Orr, the novel's "moral standard" character, what it means to be responsible. once Yossarian understands Orr's secret and how Orr is able to be responsible, Yossarian realizes that the world view he had been embracing, Catch-22, is an excuse for acting immorally. In Something Happened, Heller explores the possibility of a character failing morally. Bob Slocum understands the morally responsible world view his son, the "moral standard" character, demonstrates, but Slocum chooses to embrace a deterministic world view which denies free will, giving him an excuse to act immorally. Heller uses Good as Gold to reaffirm his moral vision of responsibility while exploring a second excuse for denying responsibility, belief in a world ruled by chance. The protagonist, Bruce Gold, eventually embraces the values his brother, sid, the novel's "moral standard" character, demonstrates. Bruce's world view reaches moral convergence with Sid's world view. At the end of the novel, Bruce Gold, much like Yossarian in Catch-22, is running away from a society which endorses irresponsibility and running to a society which encourages responsibility. The moral vision which is developed in Heller's first three novels confirms that Joseph Heller is a moral writer. It also establishes that moral fiction is possible even in contemporary novels which seem "morally confusing."