Catch-22

Captain "Aarfy" Aardvark is a fictional character in the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Aarfy is the navigator in Yossarian's B-25, noted for being... oblivious to incoming flak, getting lost on missions, and his omnipresent pipe. His nickname "Aarfy" is an abbreviation of his surname, Aardvark. Aarfy is a social climber looking to work his way up into high society. Aarfy befriends Nately because Nately's father is rich, and he hopes to work for him after the war. Aarfy sees himself as moral and protects well-connected women from the sexual advances of other officers, looking for any possibility of self-advance within society. "Old Aarfy has never paid for it" he often says in reference to prostitutes. He often and openly commits rape, and says he can tell which girl is "nice and clean" and which isn't. Yossarian is constantly infuriated by Aarfy during missions, who appears to have no fear of flak and always gets in Yossarian’s way when he is trying to get back to the escape hatch, away from the bombardier position in the nose. Aarfy tries to be friends with Nately, in the hope that his father will give Aarfy an important job after the war for this service.
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An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict,... unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government to put an end to a particular war or conflict. Many groups call themselves anti-war activists though their opinions may differ: some anti-war activists may be equally opposed to both sides' military campaign; in contrast, many modern activists are against only one side's campaigns . Pacifist and anti-war movements are similar, but not the same. Pacifism is the belief that violent conflict is never acceptable and that society should not be ready to fight in a conflict ; the anti-war movement is not necessarily opposed to national defense.
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Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices,... follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon. A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm—"in satire, irony is militant"—but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of the very things the satirist wishes to attack. Satire is nowadays found in many artistic forms of expression, including literature, plays, commentary, and media such as lyrics. The word satire comes from the Latin word satur and the subsequent phrase lanx satura. Satur meant "full," but the juxtaposition with lanx shifted the meaning to "miscellany or medley": the expression lanx satura literally means "a full dish of various kinds of fruits.
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Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical... persons, but the main characters tend to be fictional. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, attempt to capture the manners and social conditions of the persons or time presented in the story, with due attention paid to period detail and fidelity. Historical fiction is found in books, magazines, art, television programming, film, theater, video games and other media. A story with a historical setting. Historical fiction presents readers with a story that takes place during a notable period in history, and usually during a significant event in that period. Historical fiction often presents actual events from the point of view of fictional people living in that time period. In some historical fiction, famous events appear from points of view not recorded in history, with fictional characters either observing or actively participating in these actual events.
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A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been... argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. The term black humor was coined by the Surrealist theoretician André Breton in 1935, to designate a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism, often relying on topics such as death. Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor , in which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included both examples in which the wit arises from a victim, with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and examples in which the comedy is used to mock the victim, whose suffering is trivialized, and leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the grotesque genre.
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