A paradoxical situation that has no happy ending. A popular movie with Alan Arkin in 1970, Catch-22 came from Joseph Heller's 1961 comical, yet gruesome, best-selling book about pilots in a ...

He is an individualist who seeks to protect his own life by fleeing to the hospital, since a "catch-22" in the army regulations prevents him from being grounded for illness or obtaining a leave.