SOURCE: Craig, David M. “From Avignon to Catch-22.” War, Literature, and the Arts 6, no. 2 (fall-winter 1994): 27-54.

In the following essay, Craig discusses the influence of Heller's World War II experience as a pilot over Avignon on the writing of Catch-22.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

—Dylan Thomas

Joseph Heller's experiences as a bombardier over Avignon during World War II were catalytic to his career as a writer. In the experiences over Avignon, Catch-22 begins. These experiences did not spark Heller's desire to be an author, for that had burned unabated since childhood.¹ Nor did the reaction the Avignon experiences occasioned occur quickly, regularly, or consciously. Rather, Avignon provided in highly compressed from Heller's essential subject—human mortality—and Avignon engaged his imagination in a way that this subject could eventually be given expression. No Catch-22 reader is likely to forget the result, the Snowden death...