Summary:
Throughout the book senseless irrationalities are found that affect the men in the squadron. The authorities demonstrate an array of bizarre reasoning for the following promotions, interrogations, deaths, missions and rivalry for ranks.
Irrational Minds:
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Throughout the book senseless irrationalities are found that affect the men in the squadron. The authorities demonstrate an array of bizarre reasoning for the following promotions, interrogations, deaths, missions and rivalry for ranks. The bureaucrats in the squadron in Pianosa find themselves looking out for what seems to make them look better rather than what is better. Their jumbled behavior goes to show how men in positions of authority, under pressure, can find irrational or illogical reasoning to be sensible while others find it foolish.
By promoting Yossarian, the bureaucrats cover up a lousy mission; by promoting Corporal Whitcomb, Colonel Cathcart might make it into the Saturday Evening Post; and by having a defective I.B.M. machine promote Major Major, Lieutenant Scheisskopf is stuck with a recruit who outranks him. On the mission over Ferrara, "Yossarian killed Kraft and his crew by taking his flight of six planes in over the target a second time." (146) Colonel Cathcart is in trouble and has to do something about Yossarian because "a trained bombardier is supposed to drop his bombs the first time," (147) and "maybe there wouldn't have been any losses" (147) if Yossarian hadn't gone over twice. They are hesitant about court-martialing him because "it looks so lousy on the report" (148) so they decide to "act boastfully about something [they] ought to be ashamed of" (149) by giving Yossarian a
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medal for bravery and "promote him to captain, too, just to make certain." (149) "Corporal Whitcomb [has]been promoted by Colonel Cathcart," (289) to the rank of sergeant for the idea that the letters home to the families of casualties could carry his signature because the colonel believes that the letters will get him in the Saturday Evening Post. Major Major is promoted to Major the day after he applied for aviation cadet training, resulting in his new name, Major Major Major Major. The drill sergeant, Lieutenant Scheisskopf, is angry because he can no longer "boast that he [can] beat the hell out of any man in this outfit," (96) and because he doesn't know how to address his superior officer to whom he is a commanding officer. Rational men would have recognized that although the mission Yossarian bungled looked lousy, it would be ridiculous to award him a medal and that Colonel Cathcarts reason to promote Corporal Whitcomb was groundless and that the mistake the I.B.M. machine made promoting Major Major should be adjusted. There are several scenes demonstrating the bureaucrats frustrating refusal to listen to reason on the subjects of interrogation, death, and missions. Lieutenant Scheisskopf thinks "Clevinger is a troublemaker and a wise guy," (80) so Clevinger is interrogated but is unable state his innocence because his way of speaking is constantly being corrected and his modes of address criticized. Authorities take the Chaplain to a cellar to interrogate him although they do not know what crime he has committed, but hope to discover it by interrogating him. When he asks them what crime he has committed they answer, "We don't know yet, but we're going to find out. And we sure know it's very serious." (391) Colonel Cathcart tries to impress his superiors by bravely volunteering his men for dangerous combat duty whenever he gets the chance. He likes to "make sure [the men] understand the importance of a tight bomb pattern," (338) which really isn't important at all as "a bomb pattern is a term [General Dreedle] dreamed up," to convince people it's important for the bombs to explode
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close together to make neat aerial photographs. Colonel Cathcart even decides to send his men on a milk run to bomb a tiny mountain village to "create a roadblock the Germans will have to clear." (335)The objective is overlooked as all he cares about is that the men "put all those bombs on a dime!" (339) when "it [would] be a much more effective roadblock with a loose bomb pattern." (338)The dead man in Yossarian's tent "[is] simply a replacement pilot who had been killed in combat before he had officially reported for duty." (117)Since "he had never officially gotten into the squadron, he could never officially be gotten out, and... the multiplying communications relating to the poor man would continue reverberating forever," (117) and no one has the authority to move his belongings out of Yossarian's tent. When McWatt flew into a mountain after the miscalculation of his "senses dropped the speeding plane down just low enough for a propeller to slice [Kid Sampson] half away," (348) everyone believes that Doc Daneeka is dead because "Doc Daneeka's name [is] down as passenger on the pilot's manifest McWatt had filed before taking off." (351) Doc Daneeka is certainly not dead because he was standing right on the beach when the plane had crashed into the mountain but "the records show [Doc Daneeka] went up in McWatts plane to collect some flight time. [He] didn't come down in a parachute, so [he] must have been killed in the crash." (352)In every one of these examples the bureaucrats turn away attempts the men make to reason with them. They keep correcting Clevinger, they don't even know why they're interrogating the chaplain, Colonel Cathcart doesn't care about the civilians in the village, Mudd's belongings cannot be moved because he never arrived, and records show that Doc Daneeka was in the plane with McWatt. Although each predicament could be worked out, the bureaucrats are irrational.
Throughout the book we find examples of competition for ranks: General Peckem plots incessantly to take over General Dreedles position, Colonel Cathcart wants to be a general, Corporal Whitcomb hates the chaplain for holding back his career and Captain Black wants
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nothing more than to be a squadron commander. Each of these men put together astonishingly absurd procedures for obtaining their goals. General Peckem is looking to "contribute to the prestige of his position and increase his striking power in the war he had declared against General Dreedle." (328) He believes that "Dreedle is the enemy," (332) and "General Dreedle commands four bomb groups that [General Peckem and Colonel Scheisskopf] simply must capture in order to continue [their] offensive." (332) Colonel Cathcart keeps raising the minimum number of missions required before a soldier can be discharged and volunteering the men for missions every chance he gets so his squadron has the highest average of missions flown to impress his superiors. Corporal Whitcomb "[forges] a powerful new alliance with the C.I.D. man," (217) making the chaplain a suspect for the Washington Irving problem. Corporal Whitcomb gets the chaplain in trouble by putting "a censor's okay on [the C.I.D. man's] letter without even reading it," (216) using Washington Irving's instead of the chaplain's so they would know it was the chaplain "because they're convinced that [the chaplain] [is] Washington Irving." (216)When Major Major is promoted to Major instead of Captain Black, Captain Black decides to take revenge by declaring "that [Major Major] [is] a communist" (122) and starting the Glorious Oath Crusade. So "from now on [Captain Black] is going to make every son of a bitch who comes into [his] intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath," and to make Major Major appear disloyal he's "not going to let that bastard Major Major sign one even if he wants to."(122)
Four clean-cut kids move in with Yossarian and get rid of the dead man in his tent; "in a matter of moments they had disposed energetically of a problem with which Yossarian and Sergeant Towser had been grappling unsuccessfully for months." (361)These four new recruits have Yossarian stunned "by their overbearing vigor and zeal, by their practical, direct efficiency" (360)The qualities these men possess are exactly the qualities the
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bureaucracy disregard. While the men in superior positions find their own reasoning to be logical and rational, others such as the four new recruits find it to be impractical.
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Works Sited
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Scribner Paperback, 1996.
This is the complete article, containing 1,331 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
