The Category of Negation as a Means of Manipulating the Reader’s Attention in the Novel «Catch-22» by J. Heller: Discursive Approach

Abstract

Based on the novel «Catch-22» by J. Heller the study implements a discursively oriented approach to the category of negation, supplemented by the theory of the textual world developed by P. Werth. The purpose of the study is to analyze this category as a sub-world of the textual space of the novel, in the format of which information about current events and the characters’ emotional-volitional state is blocked or redirected in the opposite direction, the reader’s expectations and assumptions about the subsequent unfolding of the narrator’s discourse are refuted. To study the humorous effect produced by negative structures, methods of cognitive poetics are used, which are aimed at identifying how the author’s choice of means of influencing the reader’s imagination determines the semantic structure and holistic interpretation of the text. It is established that the author implements this illocutionary installation as a result of intentional modeling of such processes as: (a) reproduction of two contradictory concepts as compatible entities; (b) manipulation of readers’ knowledge about objective and imaginary reality. It is proved that these processes underlie the coherent perception of the narrative, since the combination of contrasting phenomena on the syntagmatic axis of the text implies deep meanings. It is emphasized that the frequency functioning of the category of negation in «Catch-22» sheds light on the specifics of the author’s vision of the surrounding reality and, as a consequence, the key themes of the novel. By putting this category in the strong position of the text, the author focuses the reader’s attention on the inaction of the characters, their contradictory nature. It is revealed that the inactivity and «non-existence» of the main and secondary actors of the narrative becomes an epistemological principle justifying their behavior in extreme situations. It is concluded that as the narrative structure of the novel text unfolds, the absurdist humorous effect begins to prevail, which is realized in the contrasting juxtaposition of such conflicting frames as prudence and madness. As a result, the reader is confronted with a cognitive illusion, gets such an experience of perception of everyday objectivity, according to which strange, logically absurd and unusual situations become strikingly typical and not surprising.