Tone- The book has had some humerous and ridiculous qualities up to this point. However, the tone is not particularly a pleasant one. "And this dead one was really unknown , even though his belongings still lay in a tumble on the cot in Yossarian's tent almost exactly as he ahd left them three months earlier the day he never arrived--all contaminated with death less than two hours later, in the same way that all was contaminated with death in the very next week during the Great Big Siege of Bologna when the moldy odor of mortality hung wet in the air with the sulphurous fog and every man scheduled to fly was already tainted" (120). This has all sorts of negative connotation, and is pretty morbid. It's a reminder that war is terrible and gruesome. Yossarian is so used to death by this point that he can smell it after 2 hours and is able to live with it casually. It could serve as a grim reminder to himself as to where he is and what exactly he's doing.
Diction- Heller seems to use some pretty advanced diction and tends to enjoy using multiple synonyms of the same word in one sentence. "She would have been perfect for Yossarian, a debauched, coarse, vulgar, amoral, appetizing slattern whom he had longed for and idolized for months," (168). He's using different variations of the same word to emphasize just what kind of people both Yossarian and this girl are. He's automatically grasping my attention so that I would make no mistake with interpreting this character.
No comments:
Post a Comment