Joseph Heller's 1961 novel "Catch-22" demonstrates how human beings are devalued and ignored by bureaucracy during the war. Catch 22 takes place in Italy during Second World War and the main character of this novel, Yossarian, is an American Army pilot during the war but he realized that how crazy the war is and wants to escape from the war as soon as possible by claiming that he is insane. However, the rubbish rules created by bureaucracy give him no option but to stay at the hospital. Although, "Catch-22" is a fiction, the main character, Yossarian, shows similar characteristics and background of the author himself and the author tried to speak out to the world through him.
In the very beginning of the story, author gave brief setting of the story. The first two elements of setting the author gave in this passage is the time and the place where the rest of the story will take place. In the passage Yossarian decides to stay in the hospital till the war ends which implies that the rest of the story will take place in the hospital. Also, instead of letting his family and friends know that he is in the hospital, he lied and said that he is going on a very dangerous mission to make his family and friends think that he is dead. It is funny that Yossarian thought it is a "better idea" to make his family and friends think he is dead during the mission and it gives readers an idea that he certainly is not ordinary and how frustrated he is because of the situation where he cannot escape from the war.
There are several symbols in the passage. The first noticeable symbol is the hospital. The hospital in the story is not just a hospital for sick or injured combats rather the place where combats use as an excuse to get away from madness of the war and also symbolizes the result of unnecessary or excessive bureaucracy. This symbolic meaning of the hospital can be easily deduced from the sentence saying "All the officer patients in the ward were forced to censor letters...