Catch-22 Book Notes

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

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Author/Context

Joseph Heller was born on May 1, 1923 amidst the seashore attractions and famous hot-dog stands of New York's Coney Island. Fatherless, he grew up with his Russian-immigrant mother and two older half-siblings, Lee and Silvia. Though times were tough during the Depression, Heller was insulated by a close-knit Jewish-Italian neighborhood. An occasional prankster, young Joseph's mother often griped that he had a "twisted brain." Heller would use this fanciful imagination in numerous short stories, novels, and plays, with Catch-22 and Something Happened among his most famous compositions.

After working as a telegram delivery boy for Western Union and a blacksmith's helper in a navy yard, Heller enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1942 at the age of nineteen. His experiences as a B-25 wing bombardier during World War II provided the inspiration for Catch-22. Like his charactersYossarian and Clevinger in the novel, he attended aviation training at Santa Ana Army Air Base in California. Later stationed in Corsica, Heller enjoyed one of the most comfortable, best-equipped canvas tents in the squadron. His patient, handy, undersized roommate Ritter would become the novel's good-natured and crash-prone pilot, Orr. Major Cover, an apartment-hunting executive officer in Heller's group, became Major ---- de Coverly, and a close friend named Joe Chrenko provided a thin basis for the character of Hungry Joe.

A soldier named Francis Yohannon lived in a tent nearby and bought a cocker spaniel. Heller modified the unconventional surname for his peculiar hero, Yossarian, and swapped the spaniel for Huple's suffocating cat. The rest of Yossarian's character is a combination of Heller's imagination and Heller himself. Fear of death and the hatred of flying exhibited by the fictional bombardier are directly pulled from Heller's own emotions. The mission to Avignon is largely biographical as well; like Yossarian, Heller tended to the torn leg of a wounded top-gunner amidst bursting flak on that turbulent flight. In 1944, Heller completed his tour of duty, then defined at sixty missions, and waited eagerly to be transported back to the United States.

Heller knew that he could not return to Coney Island after the war. Instead, he married Shirley Held in 1945 and moved to California. The G.I. bill made it possible for Heller to attend the University of Southern California where he pursued his dream of becoming a writer. Heller fathered two children, Erica and Theodore, divorced, and married a second woman named Valerie Humphries. Though dabbling in advertising and teaching, Heller was passionate about writing all of his life. He died in New York in 1999, suffering a heart attack at the age of seventy-six.

The huge and enduring success of Catch-22 established Joseph Heller as a major author in contemporary American literature. An anti-war statement, an indictment of free enterprise, an exploration of sanity, and also a slap-stick parody, Catch-22 continually surprises and captivates with its brilliant interchange of comedy and tragedy. As critic Louis Hasley wrote in his 1974 review, "Dramatic Tension in 'Catch-22,'": "[The] alternating play of humor and horror [in Catch-22] creates a dramatic tension throughout that allows the book to be labeled as a classic both of humor and of war...The laughter repeadedly breaks through the tight net of frustration in which the characters struggle only to sink back as the net repairs itself and holds the reader prisoner in its outrageous bonds." (Bryfonski, 173).

Bibliography

Bryfonski, Phyllis and Carmel Mendelson, eds. Contemporary Literary Criticism, v. 8. Detroit: Gale Research, 1978.

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996.

Heller, Joseph. Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1998.

Harte, Barbara and Carolyn Riley, eds. Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, v. 66. Detroit: Gale Research, 1969.

Moritz, Charles, ed. Current Biography: 1973. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1974.

Plot Summary

Captain Yossarian is an American bombardier stationed off the Italian coast during the final months of World War II. Paranoid and odd, Yossarian believes that everyone around him is trying to kill him. All Yossarian wants is to complete his tour of duty and be sent home. However, because the glory-seeking Colonel Cathcart continually raises the number of required missions, the men of the "fighting 256th squadron" must keep right on fighting.

With a growing hatred of flying, Yossarian pleads with Doc Daneeka to ground him on the basis of insanity. Doc Daneeka replies that Yossarian's appeal is useless because, according to army regulation Catch-22, insane men who ask to be grounded prove themselves sane through a concern for personal safety. Truly crazy people are those who readily agree to fly more missions. The only way to be grounded is to ask for it. Yet this act demonstrates sanity and thus demands further flying. Crazy or not, Yossarian is stuck.

The frantic bombardier employs alternative measures to avoid combat flights. Faking a liver condition, Yossarian checks into the hospital and passes time by censoring mail and forging "Washington Irving" to official army correspondence. Yossarian postpones the mission to Bologna when he stealthily moves the bomb line on the map of Italy. A sudden outbreak of diarrhea caused by poisoned sweet potatoes also delays the mission, much to the chagrin of Milo, the mess hall officer and entrepreneur responsible for a complex international trade syndicate in which everyone has a share.

Hungry Joe has flown more combat tours of duty than anyone. Orders shipping him home are constantly unfulfilled and the ragged hero has frequent screaming nightmares. Yossarian is blamed for the loss of Kraft's plane over Ferrara because he flew over the target twice. Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn cover-up the disaster by awarding Yossarian a medal for bravery and promoting him to captain. Yossarian stands naked in formation to receive his medal. Still traumatized by Snowden's death over Avignon, Yossarian refuses to wear his gore-soaked uniform. Young Nately crashes in an emergency mission and Yossarian bears the news of his death to his beloved whore in Rome. Heartbroken and furious, she stalks Yossarian with animalistic rage and tries to murder him with a kitchen knife.

Yossarian rebelliously refuses to fly more missions. Colonel Cathcart offers Yossarian a deal: Yossarian will be sent home if he promises to praise his commanding officers. Realizing that such a bargain would betray his fellow soldiers, Yossarian refuses to sell-out.

The chaplain brings Yossarian the thrilling news that his former tent-mate, Orr, has washed ashore in Sweden after many weeks lost at sea. Yossarian realizes that Orr was not the blundering pilot that he pretended to be. Instead, Orr ingeniously rehearsed his escape with every planned crash-landing. In a rush of excitement, Yossarian decides to run away and join Orr in Sweden. Yossarian discovers that there is no such thing as Catch-22. However, it does not matter, because people believe in it anyway. He will not stick around and risk being killed in a war that is almost over. Yossarian escapes to Sweden, determined to stay alive.

Major Characters

Chaplain A. T. Tappman (Albert Taylor): An Anabaptist minister who is shy and self-conscious. He lives on the woodsy outskirts of camp and is pushed around by officials and his own assistant, Whitcomb. Homesick and submissive, he longs for his wife and is grateful for Yossarian’s friendship. He often pleads with higher ranking officials on Yossarian’s behalf to stop raising the number of missions and to send the men home. He has a burst of confidence at the end when Yossarian decides to escape to Sweden. The chaplain vows to stand up to authority and to persevere.

Colonel Cathcart : A conceited and dejected colonel who constantly tries to garner attention and desperately wants to be a general. Cathcart is the main antagonist of the novel because he volunteers his men for dangerous assignments and constantly raises the number of missions in a tour of duty to break records. He carries a cigarette holder to make him look sophisticated and is obsessed with getting his picture in The Saturday Evening Post. Cathcart is plagued by a persecution complex and constantly tallies up pros and cons as 'feathers in his cap' and 'black eyes.' Because Cathcart unfairly raises the number of missions, Yossarian and Dobbs consider assassinating him. Cathcart offers Yossarian a deal: if Yossarian will praise him to officers and the public back in the states, Cathcart will send Yossarian home.

Doc Daneeka: The bitter flight surgeon who resentfully avoids his duties in the medical tent. He is bitter that the war took him away from a newly lucrative medical practice back in the states. Yossarian asks the doctor to ground him on the basis of insanity. Doc Daneeka explains that it is impossible and is the first to introduce Yossarian to Catch-22. Daneeka is afraid to fly. He asks McWatt to record his name on the pilot’s flight log so he can draw flight pay without actually going up in a plane. He is presumed dead when McWatt crashes. Irrationally, nobody heeds his claim that he is still alive and his wife is sent a generic death notice.

Dunbar: Yossarian’s mischievous friend who cultivates boredom to increase his life-span. Dunbar stirs up trouble, fondling nurses with Yossarian and inciting a riot in the hospital over the soldier in white. Officials cause Dunbar to mysteriously 'disappear' before Yossarian can warn him of the impending trouble.

Hungry Joe: The screaming, lustful hero of the air force. He has flown more missions (six complete tours of duty!) than any one else. Orders sending him home are constantly overturned when Cathcart raises the number of required missions, and he consequently goes nuts. Terrifying nightmares plague him nightly as Huple’s suffocating cat sits on his face. He is obsessed with women and voraciously photographs the whores in Rome. He finally dies when Yossarian is in the hospital, suffocated in his sleep by Huple’s cat.

Milo Minderbinder: : The mess hall officer who creates an international trade syndicate in which everyone has a share. The entrepreneur is hugely successful and is elected to various public offices in countries along his trade route. Milo conspires with the Germans to bomb his own unit for profit and sells mission plans to the enemy. M & M Enterprises nearly collapses when Milo purchases a whole crop of Egyptian cotton. He tries to feed the cotton to troops in the mess halls by covering it with chocolate. Milo rationalizes everything by profit potential and convinces the army to support him because the syndicate is owned in part by everyone.

Nately: A rich, gentle, polite, good looking young man who looks out for Yossarian and is deeply in love with a whore. Yossarian breaks his nose when he tries to stop Yossarian from killing some pranksters on Thanksgiving. Patriotic and idealistic, he is deeply agitated when the old man in the brothel makes disparaging jokes about America. Nately finishes his missions but signs on for more because he is desperate to stay near his beloved whore. He wants to marry her, even though his wealthy father will disapprove. Nately is tragically killed on one of these extra missions, and his death deeply affects the chaplain and Yossarian.

Nately’s whore : An apathetic whore in Rome with whom Nately is deeply in love. She has a surly twelve-year-old kid sister who tries to imitate her. The whore cares little for Nately until he rescues her from captivity in an apartment rented by some rowdy officers and tucks her safely into bed. She hates Yossarian (probably for breaking Nately’s nose) and savagely tries to kill him when he tells her of Nately’s death. She ferociously batters Yossarian and threatens him with a kitchen knife. When he escapes her wrath in Rome and returns to Pianosa, she stalks him everywhere he goes. Disguised as a private, she eventually stabs him. When he escapes from the hospital on his way to Sweden, she jumps out at him again and Yossarian narrowly misses her deadly blow.

Orr: Yossarian’s warm-hearted roommate, whose inventions (like a wood-burning stove) make their tent the most luxurious in the squadron. The unlucky, buck-toothed freak crash-lands on every mission. He asks Yossarian to fly with him, but Yossarian refuses. Everyone things Orr is simple-minded because he stuffs his fat cheeks with apples and constantly brings up a whore who once battered his head with a shoe in Rome. His pretend ignorance is actually a cover and the frequent crashes are really practice for his escape to Sweden. He wanted Yossarian to join him, but his roommate never took the hint.

Snowden: A radio-gunner who is killed during the Avignon mission. His guts spilled onto Yossarian in the back of the plane while he bled and froze to death. Snowden’s gory death haunts Yossarian. The chaplain conducts Snowden’s funeral and Yossarian walks around naked for a while, refusing to wear the uniform once soaked in Snowden’s blood.

Yossarian: The main character of the novel. Yossarian is a paranoid bombardier who thinks everyone is trying to kill him. He avoids flying combat missions by all means possible: by moving the bomb line on the map of Italy preceding the Bologna mission, by poisoning the squadron’s potatoes, by dismantling his intercom and ordering his plane to turn back, and by feigning a liver condition to pass the time safely in the hospital. Snowden’s gory death traumatizes Yossarian and he refuses to wear his uniform, preferring instead to go naked. He even appears nude in formation to accept a medal from Colonel Cathcart for the disaster over Ferrara. During that fatal mission, Kraft was killed because Yossarian swung back over the targeted bridge for a second pass. Yossarian asks to be grounded on the basis of insanity and rebelliously refuses to fly more missions. Because his disobedience harms army morale, Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn offer him a deal: if Yossarian will praise his commanding officers, he will be sent home. Yossarian eventually rejects the detestable bargain and runs away to join Orr in Sweden.

Minor Characters

Appleby: A patriotic, fair-haired Ping-Pong champion from Iowa. He excels at everything and everyone likes him. Yossarian despises him. Appleby reports Yossarian for refusing to take Atabrine tablets. He is a hot-shot and wants to be the best pilot in the air force.

Captain Black: He gloats when the men are sent on the risky mission to Bologna and is bitter that Major Major was promoted to squadron commander instead of himself. Black was responsible for the preposterous Loyalty Oath crusade, in which everyone was required to sign a statement of allegiance in order to obtain dinner, gear, or to perform any mundane or necessary task. The crabby captain sleeps with Nately’s whore just to tick Nately off. A big jerk, his favorite saying is 'eat your liver.'

C.I.D. Men : From the Criminal Investigation Department. They probe the 'Washington Irving' forgery incidents and are often undercover in the hospital. Their investigations lead to the interrogation of the chaplain for falsifying documents.

Captain Flume: The squadron public relations officer who is terrified that Chief White Halfoat will slit his throat during the night. He retreats into the forest and lives in the wild, refusing to come out until Halfoat dies of pneumonia. Fierce and filthy, the chaplain meets him on the edge of the forest one day and mistakes him for a prophet.

Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren: The joint squadron operations officers. Both are mild and soft-spoken and they love to fly missions. Because they are in charge of flight assignments, Yossarian fatefully instructs them to keep him out of Orr’s unlucky plane.

Chief White Halfoat: The Native American chief intelligence officer who can neither read nor write. His family was constantly forced to move around when oil was struck on their land. He bitterly hates foreigners and wants revenge on the white man. Halfoat threatens to slit his roommate Flume’s throat and correctly predicts his own death from pneumonia.

Colonel Cargill: General Peckem’s forceful and incompetent right-hand man. He is jealous when Scheisskopf joins the outfit under Peckem.

Corporal Snark: Milo’s first chef who is bitter to be cooking for tasteless army heathens. He poisons the sweet potatoes with GI soap to delay the Bologna mission when Yossarian asks him to.

Corporal Whitcomb: The chaplain’s over-sensitive assistant. He wants to institute a generic condolence letter system and is angry with the chaplain for resisting the idea. He supplies visiting C.I.D. men with evidence against the chaplain and accuses the chaplain of stealing Colonel Cathcart’s plum tomato.

Dori Duz: The horny friend of Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s horny wife. Yossarian lusts after her during cadet training but settles for Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife instead.

Wintergreen: An ex-P.F.C. (Private First Class). He constantly looses his status by repeatedly going AWOL (absent without official leave). All of the officials look to Wintergreen for inside tips and advice. He is considered the most influential man in the army because he controls the mail and helps no one but himself.

Gus and Wes: Two guys who systematically run Doc Daneeka’s medical tent. They paint patients’ gums and toes violet and hand out laxatives, regardless of the patients’ symptoms.

Havermeyer: The best bombardier in the whole squadron. He likes peanut brittle, never misses a target, and never takes evasive action. Doc Daneeka advises Yossarian to stop his rebellious complaining and to instead behave more like Havermeyer.

Huple: A fifteen-year-old pilot who lied about his age to get into the army. His pet cat tortures and suffocates his roommate, Hungry Joe. Dobbs does not trust Huple’s piloting skills and seizes the controls away from him, sending the plane into a dangerous plunge that plasters Yossarian to the ceiling.

Kid Sampson: A young pilot torn in half by a propeller when the prankster McWatt buzzes the beach in a foolish flying stunt. During the mission to Bologna, Yossarian orders Kid Samson to turn the plane back when the intercom supposedly malfunctions.

Kid sister: The sullen twelve-year-old copy-cat sister of Nately’s whore. She is lost on the streets of Rome when the whores are turned out of their brothel. Yossarian searches earnestly for her and vows to find her before escaping to Sweden.

Kraft: A young man in Yossarian’s plane who was killed in the disaster over Ferrara when Yossarian swung back over the target for a second pass. Though Yossarian is blamed for the loss, the colonels cover up the incident by awarding Yossarian a medal.

Luciana: The presumptuous girl in Rome with an invisible scar on her back. She and Yossarian have an affair and Yossarian impulsively asks her to marry him. He crumples up her address but later tries desperately to find her.

Major Danby: The officer in charge of synchronizing watches at mission briefings. He moaned unconsciously after Yossarian’s moaning insurrection and General Dreedle ordered men to kill him. Though never carried out, Danby was terrified and never the same again. He helps Yossarian escape at the end by providing money, keeping his mouth shut, and saving Yossarian from the whore’s surprise knife blow.

Major Sanderson: The staff psychiatrist at the hospital, who is plagued by feelings of inadequacy and rejection. He analyzes Yossarian’s phony fish dream and diagnoses him as insane. Yossarian believes the diagnosis will be his ticket home, but another man is sent back to the states in his place by mistake.

Mudd (a.k.a. The Dead Man in Yossarian’s Tent): A replacement pilot killed in combat before he had officially reported for duty. His belongings lay for months on the cot in Yossarian’s tent where he left them on the day he arrived and died. Yossarian and Sergeant Towser do not know how to handle the dead man in Yossarian’s tent because no one feels qualified to dispose of Mudd’s belongings. Yossarian’s new roommates move in and solve the problem by abruptly whisking Mudd’s things out of the tent.

Nurse Cramer: Nurse Duckett’s best friend at the army hospital. She cares for the men sternly and changes the jars for the soldier in white. She disapproves of Duckett’s affair with Yossarian.

Nurse Duckett: The pretty, good-hearted, sentimental nurse that Yossarian has an affair with. She dumps Yossarian in hopes of marrying a doctor and urgently warns him that officials are planning to 'disappear' Dunbar.

Old Man : The stinky, disheveled old man in the brothel in Rome. He poked Major ---- de Coverly in the eye with a red rose. His unfavorable jokes about America greatly distress Nately.

Sergeant Towser: Major Major’s office administrator. He is commanded never to admit anyone to see Major Major unless Major Major is not there. He carries out this illogical order to the frustration of Major Major’s visitors. Towser ineffectually ponders the problem of the dead man in Yossarian’s tent.

The Soldier in White: A broken, burned-up man in a complete plaster body cast. The nurses take his temperature and change the food and waste jars connected to him with a pipe. Dunbar incites a commotion at the hospital when he sees him again and shouts, 'He’s back!'

The Texan: The overly-friendly patient who annoys all the men in the hospital ward and causes them to leave. He is the only person who will speak to the mummified soldier in white.

Washington Irving: An American essayist, novelist and historian who lived from 1783 to1859. Yossarian forges Irving’s name to official documents when he is on censoring-duty during a hospital stay. Major Major picks up the forgery habit, too, signing 'Washington Irving' to all official correspondence that comes across his desk. C.I.D. men investigate and accuse the chaplain of being the mysterious Washington Irving impostor. Their incriminating evidence is a letter the chaplain wrote to his wife, which bears the Irving forgery. Yossarian is actually to blame, since he censored that very letter and inscribed the controversial signature himself.

Dobbs: The jumpy co-pilot who tries to enlist Yossarian’s help in plans to assassinate Colonel Cathcart. He abandons the murder-plot when he completes his tour of duty. Even though he has finished his missions, he is sent up in emergency combat and dies in a crash with Nately.

Aarfy: Yossarian’s plump, oblivious, infuriating navigator who has a poor sense of direction. He intrudes into the nose of the plane and gets in Yossarian’s way. When Yossarian’s leg is wounded by a blast of flak, Aarfy cannot hear Yossarian’s cries for help and dumbly offers no help. A past fraternity boy, he often boasts that he never has to pay whores for sex. He rapes a poor servant girl in Rome and murders her by pushing her out the window.

Clevinger: An ingenious Harvard grad who is the first to call Yossarian crazy. He is picked on in cadet training by Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who brings him up on contrived charges before the Action Board. Clevinger is presumed dead when his plane disappears.

General Dreedle: A general who hates his rival, Peckem, and likes to beat up on his son-in-law, Colonel Moodus. He opens up the skeet courts and wants the men to play daily because target shooting is good practice.

General Peckem: A scholarly neat-freak who competes with General Dreedle. Hoping to gain control over multiple army divisions, he sends out wordy, grammatically-correct memoranda to army headquarters asking that his combat operations unit be put under Special Services. Peckem’s plan backfires. The army finally complies with his suggestion, but only after instating Scheisskopf as head of Special Services and thus making Sheisskopf his new commanding officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Korn: Colonel Cathcart’s hard-nosed, take-charge, right-hand man. Korn sucks-up to the generals and Cathcart is jealous of him. Both Cathcart and Korn arrange a deal with Yossarian, promising to give Yossarian his freedom in exchange for praise and glorification.

Lieutenant Scheisskopf: Originally the officer at Yossarian and Clevinger’s cadet school in Santa Ana, California. He is a parade fanatic and reinstates his beloved marches when he is later shipped over to Pianosa. He ascends the ranks quickly, much to the distress of General Peckem.

Major ---- de Coverly: The awe-inspiring, regal squadron executive officer whose duties consist of pitching horseshoes and renting apartments for enlisted men and officers to use on rest leaves. Intimidating and unapproachable, no one even knows his first name! He wears an eye-patch because an old man poked him with a red rose in Rome.

Major Major Major : A reclusive Henry Fonda look-alike who was promoted to the rank of major by an IBM computer glitch. He jumps out of his window to avoid visitors and spends the better part of each day forging Washington Irving’s name to official documents.

McWatt: A pilot in Yossarian’s plane who bandages Yossarian’s leg wound. His flying antics accidentally mutilate Kid Sampson. Traumatized, he deliberately flies into a mountain, commiting suicide.

Objects/Places

Atabrine tablets: An anti-malarial drug. Yossarian upsets Appleby by refusing to take them.

Avignon: A city in South East France near the confluence of the Rhone and Durance rivers. Snowden is killed on the Avignon mission.

B-25s: The North American B-25 Mitchell. A dull-green, twin-engined WWII bomber with wide wings that accommodates a four to six-man crew. Their single fault, in Yossarian’s opinion, is the tight crawlway separating the bombardier’s compartment in the Plexiglas nose from the nearest escape hatch.

Bologna: A commune in North Italy of Emilia-Romagna at the foot of the Apennines. The missions to Bologna are especially dangerous and Yossarian dreads them.

Bombardier: A bomber-crew member in the nose of the plane who uses the bombsight (a sighting device for aiming) and releases the bombs.

Catch-22: A bogus army regulation. Its twisted logic makes it impossible to avoid combat, to exercise independence, or to disobey superior officers.

Cigarette holder: Colonel Cathcart purchased an ornate cigarette holder the day before arriving in Pianosa. He twirls it around everywhere because he thinks it makes him look sophisticated.

Egyptian cotton: Milo purchases the whole crop in Cairo for his syndicate and cannot get rid of it. The syndicate is threatened and Milo tries to feed the cotton to the men by covering it with chocolate.

Eye-patch: Doc Daneeka fashions a clear eye-patch for Major ---- de Coverly when the old man pokes his eye out.

Flak: Anti-aircraft guns or the bursting shells fired from them. Derived from the German word fliegerabwehrkanonen: flieger (flyer) + abwehr (defense) + kanonen (cannons).

Huple’s cat: The fifteen-year old pilot’s kitty which sits on Hungry Joe’s face at night and suffocates him.

Liver disease: Yossarian checks himself into the hospital and tricks doctors by frequently faking liver disease.

Milk run: An easy mission without threat. Often a supply run or a mission over enemy territory without resistance.

Milo’s syndicate, M & M ENTERPRISES: An international trade organization created by the enterprising Milo and supported by the squadron. Everyone has a share in it.

Orr’s stove: The handiwork of Orr which keeps Yossarian’s tent warm throughout the winter.

Parades: Scheisskopf’s obsession. The marching competitions originated at training camp in California. Scheisskopf reinstates them in Pianosa when he is shipped overseas.

Pianosa: A small Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea eight miles south of Elba. Joseph Heller writes in the foreword that it is very small and obviously could not accommodate all of the actions described.

Plum tomato: Given to the chaplain by Colonel Cathcart from a barrel in his office. The chaplain is accused of stealing it.

Red rose: The old man uses this flower to poke Major ---- de Coverly in the eye during his procession through Rome.

Skeet: A trapshooting sport in which clay targets are thrown up to simulate flying birds. General Dreedle requires his men to play because he thinks it is good practice.

The Saturday Evening Post: A prestigious newspaper. Colonel Cathcart desperately wants his picture and his squadron to appear in it.

V mail: Letters from officers and enlisted men that are censored.

Ferrara: A commune in Northern Italy in Emilia-Romagna northeast of Bologna, near the river Po. Kraft is killed when Yossarian makes a second pass at the bridge over the river.

Quotes

Quote 1: "an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him." Chapter 2, pg. 29

Quote 2: "He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive." Chapter 3, pg. 38

Quote 3: "You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?" Chapter 4, pg. 48

Quote 4: "There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle." Chapter 5, pg. 55

Quote 5: "'Catch-22...says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.

"'But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.'

"'But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.'" Chapter 6, pg. 68

Quote 6: "History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war." Chapter 8, pg. 75

Quote 7: "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." Chapter 8, pg. 80

Quote 8: "With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway." Chapter 9, pg. 111

Quote 9: "Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." Chapter 12, pg. 133-134

Quote 10: "You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail." Chapter 13, pg. 149

Quote 11:"Yossarian's heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was all right and they had no excuse for turning back." Chapter 14, pg. 150

Quote 12: Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!" Chapter 15, pg. 157

Quote 13: "They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane." Chapter 17, pg.176

Quote 14: The chaplain had "failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a stronger personality. It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low." Chapter 20, pg. 208

Quote 15: "But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share." Chapter22, pg. 241

Quote 16: "'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many counties can't all be worth dying for.'" Chapter 23, pg. 257

Quote 17: "This time Milo had gone to far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made." Chapter 24, pg. 269

Quote 18: "You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!" Chapter 27, pg. 309

Quote 19: "that's the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority." Chapter 29, pg. 335

Quote 20: "Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action." Chapter 31, pg. 355

Quote 21: "It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean to disappear somebody?" Chapter 34, pg. 378

Quote 22: "And looking very superior, he tossed down on the table a photostatic copy of a piece of V mail in which everything but the salutation "Dear Mary" had been blocked out and on which the censoring officer had written, 'I long for you tragically. A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.'" Chapter 36, pg. 393

Quote 23: "Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them." Chapter 39, pg. 415

Quote 24: "We've got your pal, buddy. We've got your pal." Chapter 41, pg. 446

Quote 25: "Run away to Sweden, Yossarian. And I'll stay here and persevere. Yes. I'll persevere. I'll nag and badger Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn every time I see them. I'm not afraid." Chapter 42, pg. 461

Topic Tracking: Catch-22

Chapter 4

Catch-22 1: Colonel Korn uses the same twisted logic as Catch-22 in the information sessions. Under Colonel Korn's rule, the only people permitted to ask questions are those who never do. Korn's rule is a logical trap that makes questions impossible to ask.

Chapter 5

Catch-22 2: Yossarian's plea to be sent home on the basis of insanity is useless because, according to Catch-22, insane men who ask to be grounded are in fact sane, and thus able to fly. Truly crazy people are instead those who agree to fly more missions. Catch-22 makes it impossible to be sent home on the grounds of insanity.

Chapter 6

Catch-22 3: Army regulation Catch-22 says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to do, even if it goes against army regulation. The men have no refuge from the illogical power of the rule because officers are infallible, even if they are wrong, which they never are.

Chapter 9

Catch-22 4: The only one with any right to remove Mudd's belongings from Yossarian's tent was Yossarian. And, it seems to Major Major, Yossarian has no right. Thus, no one may move Mudd's gear. It's another Catch-22 trap.

Chapter 10

Catch-22 5: Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen's punishment of filling up holes is not a steady job. He loses it each time he finishes his sentence. To keep it, he must go AWOL again, which is impossible because he will be sent to the stockade. Wintergreen says this is another Catch-22. Similarly, Major Major's orders are very much in the spirit of Catch-22. Sergeant Towser may admit men to see Major Major, but only when he is not there. Major Major's orders make it impossible for anyone to see him.

Chapter 11

Catch-22 6: Each time Captain Black triumphs over his competitors, he becomes angry for their failure to follow his example. Each time they follow his example, he racks his brain for some new reason to be angry with them again. Thus, Captain Black is impossible to please because pleasing him makes him angry. Similarly, Captain Black's loyalty oath is voluntary, but failure to agree to it will result in death. Thus, the voluntary agreement is not really voluntary.

Chapter 12

Catch-22 7: The more it rains, the worse the men suffer. The worse they suffer, the more they pray that it will continue raining. The rain makes life miserable, but once it lets up, they must fly the dangerous mission to Bologna. Either way they must suffer.

Chapter 16

Catch-22 8: Luciana confuses Yossarian with her illogical response to his marriage proposal. She will not marry him because he is crazy and he is crazy because he wants to marry her. The circular argument is like Catch-22 in that his desire to marry Luciana hinders the marriage, just like his desire to be grounded prevents his grounding.

Chapter 39

Catch-22 9: The old woman learns that Catch-22 gives soldiers the right to do anything that the citizens cannot stop them from doing. The soldiers are justified in their unjust actions simply because they have the power. Yossarian realizes that Catch-22 does not exist, but it makes no difference. What does matter is that everyone thinks it exists, and this belief gives Catch-22 the power to repress the believers.

Topic Tracking: Hatred

Topic Tracking: Hatred

Chapter 2

Hatred 1: Yossarian's paranoia fills him with a homicidal hatred of everyone around him. People unknowingly threaten his life every day, and he fantasizes about machine-gunning strangers and starting fights. He irrationally believes that people are trying to kill him because they hate him, and he believes they hate him because he is Assyrian. As Clevinger observes, Yossarian has an unfounded suspicion that people hate him and want to kill him. The phenomenal Ping-Pong player Appleby is one of the main objects of Yossarian's irrational loathing. Everyone who knows the talented, handsome, patriotic Appleby likes him; yet Yossarian deeply despises him.

Chapter 5

Hatred 2: A conversation with Chief White Halfoat picks up on a second strain of hatred in the novel: racial intolerance. Yossarian's notion that people hate him for being Assyrian introduces the idea of prejudice, but Chief White Halfoat's bigotry develops it. Halfoat is a vengeful American Indian who is both a victim and perpetrator of bigotry. Because his ancestors were constantly pushed off their native land, he hates the white man. Surprisingly, though, he also loathes foreigners and uses racial slurs to demean all non-Indians.

Chapter 8

Hatred 3: Yossarian ineffectually warns Clevinger that Lieutenant Scheisskopf will hate him if he dares to speak up. Clevinger is confused by the blazing, brutal hatred of the Action Board. They stare at him murderously with intense loathing, even though he has truly done nothing wrong. This is hatred born of power and the ability to abuse it. Yossarian also reinforces the prejudice theme by suggesting that the Action Board hates Clevinger because he is Jewish. It does not matter that Clevinger is actually a non-Jew.

Chapter 9

Hatred 4: Major Major longs to fit in with the crowd and to be one of the guys. From childhood to the army, however, he has never been accepted by his fellow men. They hate him because of his uncanny resemblance to Henry Fonda. They are envious of him for his speedy and undeserved ascension in the ranks. They loathe him for his silly name. Major Major disguises himself in order to play an incognito game of basketball with the enlisted men. The players see through his disguise and purposely beat him up. A blood-thirsty mob, they curse, trample, stone and kick him until he weeps and runs into seclusion.

Chapter 11

Hatred 5: Captain Black is a crabby man who gets a kick out of hating people and causing them grief. His favorite saying is "eat your liver." He gloats when he learns of the dangerous mission to Bologna and cannot wait to "see those bastards' faces" when they find out they must make the hazardous flight. He accuses Major Major of being a detestable communist and sleeps with Natley's whore just to break the poor kid's heart.

Chapter 20

Hatred 6: The chaplain is plagued by self-hatred and the inability to stand up to the people he detests. He fails miserably when he tries to argue with Colonel Cathcart, and the familiar shame he feels almost swallows him up.

Chapter 21

Hatred 7: The rebellious officer Yossarian is a major "black eye" for Cathcart and he detests Yossarian greatly. Most of all, Cathcart loathes his name. "Yossarian" has too many "sss" sounds in it (much like subversive, seditious, insidious, socialist, suspicious, fascist, and communist, he thinks) and he decides it is odious and alien. Cathcart is prejudiced against the ethnic name, for is sounds nothing like the "wholesome" American name, Cathcart.

Chapter 27

Hatred 8: The psychiatrist Major Sanderson analyzes Yossarian's hatred. He says that Yossarian has a morbid aversion to dying and that he resents having to fight and risk his life in war. He notices also that Yossarian subconsciously hates bigots, bullies, snobs and hypocrites. Yossarian disagrees, saying he hates them consciously.

Chapter 28

Hatred 9: Yossarian feels a mixture of love and hatred for his strange roommate, Orr. When the tinkering inventor assembles a tiny valve, Yossarian is incensed to the point of violence. He lashes out at Orr, complaining that Orr is an imbecile and that his tinkering with small things drives him crazy. He says he hates Orr and often thinks seriously about murdering him. Though he detests Orr in such moments of rage, Yossarian nevertheless has a tender feeling of friendship for Orr and worries pitifully when Orr disappears.

Chapter 32

Hatred 10: Yossarian cannot bear his new roommates. Their enthusiasm is completely annoying and Yossarian wants to massacre them. His feelings of hatred build to rage and violence.

Chapter 34

Hatred 11: Yossarian charges up the hill on Thanksgiving, intent on murdering the pranksters at the machine gun emplacements. His rage is uncontrollable. When Nately attempts to intervene, Yossarian ferociously busts the peacemaker's nose. His resentment boils like acid and he is blinded by fury. This is the same sort of rage that motivated Yossarian's fantasies of stabbing the tinkering Orr, massacring his rowdy new roommates, and machine-gunning strangers. The difference, now, is that Yossarian is turning his violent fantasies into furious action.

Chapter 38

Hatred 12: Nately's whore has always hated Yossarian, probably because he broke Nately's nose on Thanksgiving. When Yossarian tells her of Nately's death, she is enraged and savagely tries to kill him in the most disturbing and brutal description of hatred in the novel.

Topic Tracking: Insanity

Chapter 1

Insanity 1: Yossarian believes that the hospital, the army, and the world are all full of insane people. Chaplain Tappman visits the hospital ward, and once Yossarian determines that the clergyman is not a madman, he warns Tappman that insanity is contagious. He believes that the ward is the only sane place in the world.

Chapter 2

Insanity 2: Yossarian believes that war is madness. Men lay down their lives for some vague notion of country and no one seems to mind. Men lose their minds and are rewarded with medals. Clevinger thinks Yossarian is crazy for being paranoid but Yossarian knows that his awareness of insanity in the world will save his life. Everywhere he looks he sees a crazy man, a nut, and he knows his life is in peril amid so much madness. Clevinger enumerates Yossarian's symptoms as an unreasonable belief that people hate him and want to kill him, along with homicidal impulses and violent fantasies.

Chapter 3

Insanity 3: Orr rationally explains his irrational desire to obtain droopy cheeks by stuffing them with crab apples and horse chestnuts. His tone of utter sensibility drives Yossarian crazy because Orr is one of the strangest freaks Yossarian has ever met.

Chapter 5

Insanity 4: Illogical logic provides a constant thread of insanity throughout the novel. The most prominent example of this insane reasoning comes in Catch-22, which says that a crazy man wishing to be grounded is sane, while a sane man willing to fly is crazy. Catch-22 is about insanity, but it also employs insanity in it's strange logic. Yossarian proves his point that insanity is contagious. After Yossarian's goading, Appleby believes he may have flies in his eyes. He is offended when his friends ask him if he is crazy. He believes Yossarian is the insane one, not him!

Chapter 10

Insanity 5: When Yossarian resolves that he will not fly to Bologna, Dr. Stubbs says he is a crazy bastard and consequently may be the only sane man left in the squadron. Yossarian's rebelliousness is crazy, yet Stubbs believes it is the only sane way to save one's life. Psychiatrist Major Sanderson determines that Yossarian has a sadistic, paranoid, split personality. He diagnoses Yossarian as insane. However, Major Sanderson is crazy himself. He suffers from feelings of inadequacy formed during childhood and is more concerned with his own diagnosis than with Yossarian's. This is truly an insane world - even the doctors are demented - and it is becoming increasingly difficult to trust in the sanity of anyone at all.

Chapter 16

Insanity 6: Yossarian rashly proposes to Luciana. She will not marry Yossarian because she thinks he is crazy. She thinks he is crazy because he wishes to marry her. This is a circular argument that is illogical in itself. Thus, Luciana charges Yossarian with derangement, yet her irrational arguments reveal her own absurdity.

Chapter 18

Insanity 7: Yossarian fakes dementia to prolong his hospital stay. The doctors ask him to perform a completely insane stunt for a visiting family by pretending to be their dying son, Giuseppe. Though blatantly a farce, the visiting mourners accept Yossarian as their son. The scene is dreamlike and ridiculous, yet no one chooses to take notice.

Chapter 24

Insanity 8: Milo makes an outrageous deal with the Germans to bomb his own outfit. He reasons that such double-dealing is logical because it profits the syndicate, and whatever benefits the syndicate benefits the men since everyone has a share. The insanity of this bargain is surmounted only by the insanity of the government, which pardons Milo once he argues that betrayal is legitimate if it is profitable. The blind acceptance of Milo's logic is completely absurd.

Chapter 25

Insanity 9: The chaplain is losing his mind because he takes things too seriously and has begun to question religion. His mind is in shambles and his senses are jarred. He feels a weakening of the church's dogma and is plagued by visions and prophets. The loss of total belief in God, one's true faith, and the afterlife, cause the chaplain to question his profession, his life, and his sanity. Puzzling feelings of deja vu consume his mind and he seems to be cracking up.

Chapter 27

Insanity 10: Yossarian argues that he is nuts, cuckoo, and off his rocker. He cannot believe the army would send an insane man out to be killed. But who else will go? War is insane and spares no one.

Chapter 31

Insanity 11: Doc Daneeka is presumed dead even though he is blatantly alive. Officials ignore the fact that he is clearly living and absurdly decide that he is dead and gone. They even mail condolence letters to Mrs. Daneeka and ignore Doc Daneeka to his face! Their unwavering belief in his death, despite his obvious existence, is completely bizarre, yet everyone accepts the insane situation as normal.

Chapter 39

Insanity 12: Yossarian wanders aimlessly through the streets of Rome and is saturated by the sheer deterioration of logic and morality in his surroundings. The setting takes on a nightmarish distortion and Yossarian becomes so burdened by the insanity that nothing seems bizarre to him anymore. The sidewalk is a winding trail of warped suffering as men, women, and children scream, hide, torture, convulse, rape, and murder.

Chapter 42

Insanity 13: Yossarian realizes that Orr was not such a crackpot after all! Orr feigned insanity in order to disguise his escape plans. Orr, the apple-cheeked lunatic who maddeningly tinkered and incessantly repeated the same illogical stories, emerges as the most sane and industrious man of all. His feigned insanity was his ticket to freedom.

Chapter 1: The Texan

American World War II bombardier Captain Yossarian is laid up in the hospital on the island of Pianosa with a pretend case of liver disease. The faker prolongs his hospital stay because the quiet, untroubled ward is safer and more comfortable than the hazardous B-25 bombing missions he must otherwise fly. Army regulation requires hospitalized officers to censor outgoing mail written by lower-ranking patients. Yossarian invents games (like crossing out all adjectives or deleting addresses) to spice up the monotonous task. Censoring officers must also sign their handiwork, but Yossarian instead writes versions of "Washington Irving" on the letters he inspects. This tampering makes officials suspicious, and a C.I.D. man arrives to investigate. Dunbar, in a bed across from Yossarian, stares blankly at the ceiling because he believes boredom increases his life span by lengthening time. An excessively good-natured Texan, a chess-playing fighter pilot, and the soldier in white (a dying man in a full-body cast) are Yossarian's fellow patients. Yossarian develops a crush on visiting chaplain A. T. Tappman, and he warns the self-conscious clergyman that the world outside this ward is full of insane people. When the irritating Texan becomes unbearable, Yossarian, Dunbar, and the rest of the patients abandon the ward and resume their duties.

Topic Tracking: Insanity 1

Chapter 2: Clevinger

Yossarian believes everyone is trying to murder him. Clevinger, a fellow officer, explains that the war is not a personal attack on Yossarian, but rather that everyone is trying to shoot everyone else. Yossarian is not convinced. Frustrated, Clevinger calls Yossarian crazy and lists his psychotic symptoms as: "an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him." Chapter 2, pg. 29

At the officer's club, Yossarian fantasizes about assassinating some nearby drunken singers and swears hatred for Appleby, a Midwestern Ping-Pong champion and all-around golden-boy. A scrumptious lunch in Milo's mess hall momentarily interrupts Yossarian's paranoia. Recovering his anxiety, Yossarian asks Doc Daneeka to take him off combat duty. Doc Daneeka reminds Yossarian that a complete tour of duty is fifty missions. Since he is six short, Yossarian will have to stay on.

Topic Tracking: Insanity 2
Topic Tracking: Hatred 1

Chapter 3: Havermeyer

Orr, Yossarian's oddball tent-mate, boasts that he achieved his large, droopy cheeks by stuffing them with crab apples as a youth. Colonel Cargill, ironically concerned with the morale of the army morale-boosters, orders Yossarian's unenthusiastic group to attend General Peckem's U.S.O. show. The preoccupied men make frequent visits to Sergeant Towser, hoping to receive orders sending them homeward before Colonel Cathcart raises the number of required missions again. Doc Daneeka advises Yossarian to forget going home and to make the best of things like Havermeyer, the finest bombardier in the squadron. Unlike Havermeyer, who never misses a target and never takes evasive action, Yossarian does not care whether he hits targets or not. His only aim is to return intact.

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive." Chapter 3, pg. 38

Topic Tracking: Insanity 3

Chapter 4: Doc Daneeka

Doc Daneeka is bitter that the draft took him away from his profitable civilian medical practice. Brooding over his bad luck, Doc Daneeka avoids the medical tent and shifts his duties onto two enlisted men, Gus and Wes. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen initiates a screw-ball round of prank-calling between rival generals Peckem and Dreedle. Abiding by General Dreedle's wishes, Dunbar, Yossarian and others pass the time shooting skeet. Dunbar loves shooting skeet because he hates it; the boring sport lengthens hours and improves his life-span. Clevinger does not understand Dunbar's obsession with slowing time and growing old. As Dunbar explains, "You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age?" Chapter 4, pg. 48

Topic Tracking: Catch-22 1

Chapter 5: Chief White Halfoat

Chief White Halfoat, Doc Daneeka's despised American-Indian roommate, confides in Yossarian how drilling crews constantly struck oil on his family's land and repeatedly forced them to relocate. Yossarian asks that Doc Daneeka declare him mentally unfit to fly further missions. Clevinger and the rest of the gang all believe Yossarian is nuts, so it makes sense that the mad bombardier should be taken off sky-duty. Doc Daneeka replies that Yossarian's plea is useless because, according to Catch-22, insane men who ask to be grounded are in fact sane, and thus able to fly. Truly crazy people are those who agree to fly more missions.

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle." Chapter 5, pg. 55

Yossarian is stuck. He must continue to fly missions with Aarfy, his navigator, and McWatt, his pilot. However, Yossarian disregards his targets and thinks only of the B-25's narrow escape hatch.

Topic Tracking: Insanity 4
Topic Tracking: Hatred 2
Topic Tracking: Catch-22 2

Chapter 6: Hungry Joe

Hungry Joe has flown more combat tours of duty than anyone. Orders shipping him home are constantly unfulfilled and the ragged hero has consequently cracked up. Jumpy and irritable, Hungry Joe screams through his frequent nightmares and tackles his roommate Huple's cat. Hungry Joe's "maniacal howling" keeps most of the squadron awake at night, which suits Captain Flume just fine because he fears Chief White Halfoat will slit his throat in the night and wants to stay awake. Yossarian learns that the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters defines a complete tour as forty missions, and having forty-eight, he is hopeful of discharge. Doc Daneeka then reveals another clause of Catch-22:

"'Catch-22...says you've always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.
"'But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions.'
"'But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then the Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you.'"
Chapter 6, pg. 68

Topic Tracking: Catch-22 3

Chapter 7: McWatt

Enterprising mess hall cook Milo Minderbinder borrows prunes from Yossarian to sell on the black market. The entrepreneur dreams of setting up a syndicate on the base. Milo swindles a thief to recover a bedsheet stolen from the flamboyant pilot McWatt. Colonel Cathcart has raised the number of missions to fifty-five.

Chapter 8: Lieutenant Scheisskopf

"History did not demand Yossarian's premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war." Chapter 8, pg. 75

In a flashback to cadet school, Yossarian remembers Lieutenant Scheisskopf's fanatic love of parades and hatred of Clevinger. Scheisskopf's greatest victory in parade competition was teaching his men to march without swinging their hands. Clevinger, too smart for his own good, is brought up on charges before the action board.

"The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." Chapter 8, pg. 80

Yossarian only volunteered for this extra aviation training because it delayed his entry into combat duty. But Yossarian ends up falling in love with Dori Duz and having sex with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife.

Topic Tracking: Hatred 3

Chapter 9: Major Major Major Major

Major Major, absurdly named by his joking father, is promoted to the rank of major by an IBM computer glitch. All Major Major desires is acceptance and companionship, yet he is continually ostracized in cadet school. He is excluded from squadron basketball games, and disliked by fellow officers due to his speedy promotion and his resemblance to actor Henry Fonda. Promoted prematurely to squadron commander, Major Major Major has no idea what he is expected to do. Bored and depressed, he begins signing "Washington Irving" on official documents after two strange C.I.D. men question him regarding the forging incidents at the hospital. Major Major Major becomes reclusive and instructs his assistant, Sergeant Towser, to admit visitors only when Major Major is out of his office. Major Major no longer takes meals in the mess hall and he jumps out the window of his tent to avoid his office workers and visitors.

"With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway." Chapter 9, pg. 111

Only Yossarian manages to tackle and speak to the antisocial major. Major Major thinks Yossarian is a freak because he carries on about a dead man in his tent and because he went naked to receive an award for heroism from General Dreedle. Yossarian asks Major Major to take him off combat duty. Major Major lamely replies that there is nothing he can do.

Topic Tracking: Hatred 4
Topic Tracking: Catch-22 4

Chapter 10: Wintergreen

Clevinger's plane has disappeared on a run and he is presumed dead. Yossarian remembers ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, a former Private First Class who was repeatedly sentenced to dig and fill up holes and busted down to a lower rank each time he went AWOL and was caught.

Sergeant Towser thinks of Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent who was really a replacement pilot killed in combat before he had officially reported for duty. The ambitious Colonel Cathcart has volunteered his overtaxed men for a dangerous mission in Bologna. It is unavoidable since sick-call has been suspended and everyone is expected to fly. Yossarian is sure he will be killed and swears he will not fly to Bologna.

Topic Tracking: Insanity 5
Topic Tracking: Catch-22 5

Chapter 11: Captain Black

Captain Black gloats that his men will be sent to Bologna. The squadron's fear makes him feel as important as the good old days of the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade. Eager for acclaim and suspicious that Major Major was a Communist, Captain Black forced all men to sign multiple statements of loyalty to get their meals, their gear, and their vehicles. The crusade got out of hand until the regal and imposing Major ---- de Coverly intervened.

Topic Tracking: Hatred 5
Topic Tracking: Catch-22 6

Chapter 12: Bologna

Rain and a sudden outbreak of diarrhea delay the mission to Bologna. Yossarian, believing he will be killed in Bologna, further postpones the mission when he stealthily moves the bomb line on the map of Italy. Thinking Bologna is captured, officials mistakenly cancel the mission. Clevinger criticizes Yossarian's rebellious attitude and disobedient self-concern. Yossarian fires back, "Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." Chapter 12, pg. 133-134 Depressed and jumpy, the men get drunk and go joy-riding in a jeep without headlights. Hungry Joe's screams attract the intoxicated crew to camp. Yossarian arrives at Hungry Joe's tent just in time to officiate a fight between the screaming dreamer and Huple's suffocating cat.

Topic Tracking: Catch-22 7

Chapter 13: Major ---- de Coverly

Stately and revered, Major ---- de Coverly fulfills his duties as squadron executive officer by merely pitching horseshoes and renting apartments for the men's rest leave. Renting apartments in recently sacked cities, the regal Major ---- de Coverly is often photographed on the victorious site and he gains the reputation as a noble conqueror. American officials and enemy forces have no idea who he is - nobody even knows his first name! - but they think he must be important since he looks so noble.

Major ---- de Coverly rents some apartments in Rome and the men enjoy orgies with the usual prostitutes. Yossarian fantasizes about a black-haired countess and her daughter-in-law, and also falls for an obliging maid in lime-green panties.

Major ---- de Coverly wears a clear eye-patch fashioned by Doc Daneeka because a stinky old man poked him in the eye with a red rose during a triumphal parade through Rome. Only Milo Minderbinder has the guts to approach the imposing major. Enticing him with the prospects of fresh eggs and butter, Milo the mess officer convinces Major ---- de Coverly to lend him a plane to fly weekly supply runs to Malta. Egg eating catches on and soon Milo is running daily flights for supplies and cooking for every squadron in Colonel Cathcart's group. Milo's trade syndicate is up and running.

Colonel Cathcart remembers the disaster over Ferrara when he had volunteered his men to blow out a bridge over the river Po. Still standing after nine unsuccessful missions, Yossarian's squadron was sent out a tenth time to demolish the bridge. Again the bombers were unsuccessful until Yossarian bravely swung back for a second pass and managed to hit the target. Unfortunately, of the six other planes in Yossarian's formation, Kraft's plane blows up and the entire crew is lost. Yossarian is blamed for the loss. Colonel Cathcart and Lietenant Colonel Korn cover-up the shameful incident by awarding Yossarian a medal for bravery and promoting him to captain. Korn says, "You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail." Chapter 13, pg. 149

Chapter 14: Kid Sampson

The dreaded mission to Bologna has arrived and Yossarian is freaked out. "Yossarian's heart sank. Something was terribly wrong if everything was all right and they had no excuse for turning back." Chapter 14, pg. 150 Eager to abort the mission, Yossarian yanks the wires out of his intercom and orders pilot Kid Sampson to turn back since the intercom is busted. Because Yossarian is the highest ranking officer onboard, Kid Samson must comply. The crew gleefully celebrates their luck in avoiding Bologna, but Yossarian is restless and weary. He heads to the beach and falls asleep. Awakened by the returning planes, Yossarian is amazed that all of his fellow bombers have returned unharmed. Bologna turned out to be an easy milk run; already bombed, the city posed no danger.

Chapter 15: Piltchard & Wren

Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren gently reprimand Yossarian for abandoning the Bologna mission simply for an intercom malfunction. Colonel Cathcart arranges a second mission to Bologna and Piltchard and Wren assign Yossarian to fly lead bombardier. The planes are hit with heavy flak and Yossarian screams commands at his pilot, McWatt: "Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb!" Chapter 15, pg. 157 Aarfy dumbly intrudes into the nose of the plane where Yossarian is frantically working. An empty-headed ogre, Aarfy is oblivious to Yossarian's infuriated pleas that he get out of the way. Planes are hit and Yossarian worries that unlucky Orr has been shot down again. He is relieved when he spots Orr's mangled plane as it crash-lands safely. Yossarian takes an emergency rest leave in Rome and meets Luciana.

Chapter 16: Luciana

Yossarian meets the strange, rude girl Luciana at the Allied officers' night club in Rome. She says presumptuously that Yossarian may dance with her and buy her dinner, but she will not sleep with him. When she visits him the next day, after their lovemaking, Yossarian impetuously asks her to marry him. She won't because she thinks he's crazy. Nately is depressed because he is in love with an apathetic whore and has spent all of his money on her. Flat broke, Nately's whore refuses to spend any more time with him. Yossarian tears up Luciana's address as she predicted, and then tries desperately to find her. Hungry Joe informs Yossarian that Colonel Cathcart has raised the number of missions to forty and, stunned, Yossarian abruptly checks himself into the hospital.

Topic Tracking: Insanity 6
Topic Tracking: Catch-22 8

Chapter 17: The Soldier in White

Yossarian is determined to remain in the hospital rather than fly the increased missions. He can run into the hospital whenever he wants to by claiming a pain in his liver that confuses doctors. It is better to be in the hospital than in Bologna or flying over Avignon because death is controlled and sanitized:

"They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane." Chapter 17, pg.176

Yossarian and Dunbar are intrigued by the silent, plastered soldier in white. The patients complain about the unjust distribution of their illnesses. Yossarian worries like a hypochondriac and he again asks Doc Daneeka to ground him and send him home. Doc Daneeka vaguely promises that maybe he will think about doing something to help Yossarian once he's completed fifty-five. He must also convince McWatt to put Daneeka's name on the flight log so he can draw flight pay without going up in the plane. With all the illnesses and dangers, Yossarian is amazed he's managed to survive for twenty-eight years.

Chapter 18: The Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice

Yossarian flashes back to his days as a private when he first ditched physical education by escaping to the hospital. When doctors finally assess Yossarian as healthy, Yossarian adopts the dementia experienced by a roommate who sees double. Yossarian spends Thanksgiving in the hospital, and the following year, he spends his Thanksgiving with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, having sex and debating the benevolence of a non-existent God. Before leaving the hospital, Yossarian impersonates a dying soldier, Giuseppe, for some grief-stricken visiting relatives.

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Chapter 19: Colonel Cathcart

Colonel Cathcart is eager to win the attention and admiration of his superiors and desperate to become a general. Seeing an article in The Saturday Evening Post about an American bomber group that holds prayers before missions, Colonel Cathcart summons the chaplain to discuss blessings before combat. Rather than depressing religious prayers, Cathcart wants to pray for a tighter bombing pattern. The chaplain intends to speak to Colonel Cathcart on behalf of Yossarian regarding the unfair new requirement of sixty missions. Cathcart gives the chaplain a plum tomato and carelessly advises the chaplain to tell the dissatisfied men to simply trust in God.

Chapter 20: Corporal Whitcomb

The sheepish chaplain feels ashamed that his discussion with Colonel Cathcart about the sixty missions failed. He had "failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a stronger personality. It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low." Chapter 20, pg. 208 Returning to his remote quarters in a clearing by the woods, the chaplain sees his oversensitive assistant, Corporal Whitcomb, whispering with a bathrobe-clad C.I.D. man. Smirking, Corporal Whitcomb says the C.I.D. investigator is cracking down on the chaplain for intercepting Major Major's mail and signing "Washington Irving" to his letters. Corporal Whitcomb then accuses him of stealing a plum tomato from Colonel Cathcart. The innocent chaplain denies both the forgery and theft charges. Corporal Whitcomb is touchy because the chaplain has rejected his idea of generic condolence letters. Dejected, the chaplain resorts to eating candy bars in a state of depression.

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Chapter 21: General Dreedle

After the chaplain's visit, Colonel Cathcart is plagued by thoughts of the suspicious troublemaker, Yossarian. He remembers how Yossarian stood in formation butt-naked to receive an unmerited medal for the Avignon disaster. Snowden had been killed in Yossarian's plane during the Avignon mission and had spilled his guts all over Yossarian. The blood-soaked and traumatized bombardier stripped down naked and swore he would never wear a uniform again. Paranoid, Colonel Cathcart jots down a list of "Feathers in My Cap!!!" and "Black Eyes!!!" to tally his achievements and disasters and to see how many disasters he can attribute to Yossarian. He is an insecure man and requires constant reassurance from his assistant, Colonel Korn.

Just before the mission to Avignon, Yossarian interrupted the briefing when he saw General Dreedle's buxom nurse and moaned with lust. Dunbar and Nately joined in disobediently and soon the whole room erupted with a chorus of groaning "Oooooooooooohs." General Dreedle nearly squelches the moaning insurrection and restores order, but then Major Danby unconsciously mutters an "Ohhh" of frustration when the men fail to synchronize their watches. Enraged, Dreedle orders men to take Major Danby outside and shoot him. Though never carried out, Dreedle's insane order scared Danby. Colonel Korn takes over the briefing and Cathcart is unbearably jealous that Korn may be scoring points with General Dreedle.

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Chapter 22: Milo the Mayor

The mission to Avignon and Snowden's resulting death traumatized Yossarian. Dobbs erratically wrestled the flight controls away from the fifteen-year-old pilot, Huple, and the plane plunged into a terrifying dive. Responding to Snowden's whimpers, Yossarian crawled back to help the injured and freezing radio-gunner. Dobbs is a terrible pilot and a scheming assassin. On the day Colonel Cathcart raised the number of required missions to sixty, Dobbs plotted to kill Cathcart and unsuccessfully sought Yossarian's blessing.

Yossarian and the buck-toothed freak, Orr, accompany Milo on a supply trip to Cairo. Milo's syndicate is a huge and complex international success. From eggs to artichokes, Milo buys his produce, sells it to other countries, and repurchases it to build up the price and profit the syndicate. When Yossarian questions how Milo can buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and then sell them for five cents, Milo replies, "But I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share." Chapter22, pg. 241 Through a mathematical entanglement of trading and re-trading, everything benefits the syndicate, and, as Milo explains in his favorite motto, everyone in Yossarian's outfit has a share. Yossarian is perplexed by the majestic welcome Milo receives when their supply plane arrives in Palermo. He soon learns that Milo had been elected mayor for introducing the lucrative scotch trade there. Milo's fruitful trading practices have garnered him similar public offices in nearly every city on his trade route. After purchasing an entire crop of Egyptian cotton in Cairo, Milo conducts a few more transactions and heads back to Pianosa. The syndicate is a booming success and everybody has a share.

Chapter 23: Nately's Old Man

Nately is hopelessly in love with a prostitute who resents and ignores him. The men visit a brothel and all enjoy a wild, fantastic orgy except Nately, who is troubled by an old man in an armchair who pops rude, blasphemous jokes about America. Nately learns with horror that this scornful old man is the lunatic who poked Major ---- de Coverly's eye out with a red rose during a procession through Rome.

"'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many counties can't all be worth dying for.'" Chapter 23, pg. 257

Chapter 24: Milo

Milo's syndicate, M & M Enterprises, is verging on collapse due to his overstock of Egyptian cotton. To bail the syndicate out, Milo makes an outrageous deal with the Germans to bomb his own outfit. Many are injured. Previous business with the German enemies had led to great success. Milo used German bombers to transport yams and greens. He even tipped German anti-aircraft gunners off to American surprise attacks and indirectly caused the death of Mudd. Milo reasons that such double-dealing profits the syndicate, and whatever benefits the syndicate benefits the men since everyone has a share. However, "This time Milo had gone to far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made." Chapter 24, pg. 269

Yossarian, naked in a tree, watches Snowden's burial from a distance. Shocked by Snowden's mutilation and covered in his blood and guts during the Avignon mission, Yossarian refuses to put on his uniform. While Yossarian mourns Snowden, Milo joins him in the tree and instead mourns the demise of his syndicate. He offers Yossarian some chocolate-covered cotton, absurdly hoping to turn the losing cotton surplus into a new dessert offering at the mess hall.

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Chapter 25: The Chaplain

The home-sick, submissive chaplain is having a crisis of faith. While conducting Snowden's funeral, Chaplain Tappman mistakes Yossarian's naked figure for a magnificent spiritual vision. Determined to help Yossarian, the chaplain visits Major Major about Colonel Cathcart's unfair mission extensions. The fleeting Major Major is never available and the chaplain miserably fails. Walking back, the chaplain is accosted by the ragged, famished Captain Flume, who has been living alone in the forest to escape his would-be killer, Chief White Halfoat. Flume is eager to know whether Halfoat has died of pneumonia. In the chaplain's absence, Corporal Whitcomb has been promoted to sergeant by Colonel Cathcart. Hoping to get into The Saturday Evening Post, Colonel Cathcart has adopted Whitcomb's generic condolence letter plan. Cathcart volunteers his men for a second mission to Avignon, hoping the dangerous mission will provide casualties so that Whitcomb's fill-in-the-black sympathy letters can be put to use.

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Chapter 26: Aarfy

The incompetent navigator Aarfy gets lost on a combat mission and leads his plane over an unexpected patch of anti-aircraft fire. A burst of flak nicks an artery in Yossarian's leg. Rapidly losing strength, he pleads with Aarfy for help. Deaf to Yossarian's cries, Aarfy dumbly repeats that he cannot hear what Yossarian is screaming. He loses consciousness and awakens to find McWatt caring for his wound. Yossarian spends several oblivious days in the hospital and is joined by the faker Dunbar, who switched identities with a lower-ranking hospitalized soldier so that his bed could be nearer to Yossarian. Together they start making trouble for the nurses.

Chapter 27: Nurse Duckett

Yossarian and Dunbar playfully fondle Nurse Duckett and she shrieks with horror. Major Sanderson, an unsound staff psychiatrist, asks Yossarian about his dreams and diagnoses him as insane, saying, "You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!" Chapter27, pg. 309 Dobbs visits Yossarian in the hospital brandishing a gun and plans to kill Colonel Cathcart. Yossarian, thinking his leg wound is a ticket home, refuses to go along with Dobbs' murder plot. The wrong man is sent home in Yossarian's place and Yossarian is shuffled back into combat duty.

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Chapter 28: Dobbs

With a rumors circulating about another dreaded mission to Bologna, Yossarian stealthily visits Dobbs to reopen the assassination plan for Colonel Cathcart. Having finished his sixty missions, Dobbs now rejects the murder-plot he originated.

Yossarian learns that Orr crash-landed in the water again during his hospital stay. The life jackets were useless because Milo had borrowed the inflating gas to make fizzy ice cream sodas in his mess halls. Blessed with mechanical genius and survival skills, Orr fished and rowed his crew to safety. Back in their tent, Orr annoys Yossarian by meticulously assembling a tiny stove valve. Orr tries to convince Yossarian to fly with him and reasons that his recurrent crash landings are good practice. He urges Yossarian to have Piltchard and Wren assign him to Orr's plane. Orr often goads Yossarian by refusing to tell him why a whore repeatedly struck his head with a shoe in Rome. If Yossarian will join Orr's flight, Orr promises to finally answer the riddle. Yossarian refuses, and Orr is soon knocked down into the water again on the mission to Bologna. Yossarian expects word from his pudgy-cheeked tentmate any day, but Orr does not return.

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Chapter 29: Peckem

Lieutenant Scheisskopf has been shipped over to Pianosa and promoted to colonel under General Peckem. While General Peckem tries to impress his new colonel with his wit and vocabulary, Scheisskopf is solely interested in the prospect of holding parades. Though Peckem refuses to permit the parades, he does allow Colonel Scheisskopf to post memos postponing them. Colonel Cargill feels slighted by Scheisskopf's new duty and Peckem appeases him by allowing Cargill to call off the U.S.O. shows. Cargill and Scheisskopf attend Major Danby's preliminary briefing of Cathcart's men. The latest mission requires the squadron to bomb a tiny, undefended village to create a roadblock for the Germans. Colonel Cathcart knows the mission is entirely unnecessary but, as he says, "that's the way things go when you elevate mediocre people to positions of authority." Chapter 29, pg. 335 Dunbar and the gang reject the mission as cruel, but are silenced when Colonel Korn threatens them with another dangerous mission to Bologna. Colonel Cathcart instructs the men to hold a tight bomb pattern. He wants the exploding little village to look sharp in the aerial photographs.

Chapter 30: Dunbar

Dunbar deliberately drops his bombs past the village and becomes morose and disrespectful. Yossarian is lead bombardier again, with McWatt at the pilot controls. McWatt loves to fly and petrifies Yossarian with aerial tricks and near-misses. Yossarian threatens to strangle him if he continues to endanger their lives with his airborne antics. Back at camp, Yossarian lovingly makes out with Nurse Duckett on the beach while Nurse Cramer sits disapprovingly and the men play cards nearby. The prankster McWatt buzzes the beach with his low-flying plane and accidentally catches Kid Sampson's body in the propellers, tragically slicing him in half. Horrified, McWatt crashes his plane into a mountain in suicidal repentance.

Chapter 31: Mrs. Daneeka

According to the long-standing deal Doc Daneeka had worked out, McWatt often recorded Daneeka's name as a passenger on his pilot's log so that the fearful doctor could collect flight pay without going up in a dreaded plane. Since Daneeka's name was registered on McWatt's flight the day of the suicidal crash, Doc Daneeka is presumed dead. In response, Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions to seventy. Doc Daneeka pleads with everyone that he is not dead, yet no one will listen. Colonel Cathcart sends his wife one of Whitcomb's generic condolence letters, which reads:

"Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka:
"Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action."
Chapter 31, pg. 355

Mrs. Daneeka, rich from several GI insurance policies, moves away with her children.

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Chapter 32: Yo-Yo's Roomies

Yossarian is haunted by thoughts of Kid Sampson, Snowden, and Orr. Four rowdy, inexperienced replacement pilots move into Yossarian's tent. They nickname Yossarian "Yo-Yo" and thoughtlessly handle Orr's beautiful stove. The boisterous roommates even get rid of the dead man in Yossarian's tent by simply whisking Mudd's belongings out the door. Distressed, Yossarian flees to Rome.

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Chapter 33: Nately's Whore

Some naked military big-wigs are holding Nately's whore captive in their apartment. Nately, Yossarian, and Dunbar throw the captors' discarded clothing out the window and rescue Nately's girl. Nately tenderly puts the tired whore to bed and she instantly falls in love with him. Happily dreaming of marriage, Nately makes the whore promise to give up prostitution and to stop seeing Captain Black.

Chapter 34: Thanksgiving

The men pass a drunken, rowdy Thanksgiving in the officers' club and on the grounds. Yossarian goes to bed early and is frightfully awakened by machine-gun fire and drunken laughter. He realizes the firing is not an attack but just a prank, and he is infuriated by the gunners' irresponsibility. Yossarian charges up the hill to kill them all but is halted by Nately, who tries ineffectually to calm him down. Yossarian curses Nately and punches him in the face, breaking his nose. Dunbar likewise charged the hill in a murderous rage but the gunners had escaped. Finally calm, Yossarian feels terrible about hurting Nately. Both Yossarian and Dunbar check themselves into the hospital to keep the black-eyed Nately company. Hungry Joe joins them with a faked appendicitis, and even the exhilarated chaplain checks in with a contrived case of shingles. Dunbar incites a riot when he sees a patient in a full body cast. Remembering the soldier in white, Dunbar shouts "He's back! He's back!" and confusion erupts throughout the ward. Nurse Duckett, who recently dumped Yossarian in hopes of snagging a doctor, whispers to Yossarian that officials are planning to "disappear" Dunbar. Yossarian is confused and complains, "It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar. What the hell does it mean to disappear somebody?" Chapter 34, pg. 378 Yossarian rushes to warn Dunbar, but his friend has already vanished.

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Chapter 35: Milo the Militant

Milo insincerely discusses giving up control of his syndicate to fly more combat missions. Chief White Halfoat has died of pneumonia and Nately volunteers to fly his missions. The lovesick boy wishes to prolong his duty as long as possible so he can stay near Rome and his darling whore. Yossarian is unable to dissuade Nately from staying because Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions to eighty and sends them all out on an emergency flight. Two planes go down, and Dobbs and Nately are among those killed.

Chapter 36: The Cellar

Chaplain Tappman is deeply saddened by Nately's death. Several stern officials suddenly apprehend the bewildered chaplain and bring him to a dank basement for questioning. They give him a handwriting test and accuse him of forging Washington Irving's name to official documents. As evidence, they produce a letter written to the chaplain's wife.

"And looking very superior, he tossed down on the table a photostatic copy of a piece of V mail in which everything but the salutation 'Dear Mary' had been blocked out and on which the censoring officer had written, 'I long for you tragically. A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.'" Chapter 36, pg. 393

This is the letter Yossarian fraudulently censored during an earlier hospital stay. The chaplain recognizes Yossarian's handwriting but keeps his mouth shut. The interrogators also mock his religion and accuse him of stealing Colonel Cathcart's plum tomato. Chaplain Tappman is abruptly released and he complains to Colonel Korn about the recent unfair deaths. Many of those who died in the latest missions had completed their seventy missions and should have been sent home. Colonel Korn informs him that General Peckem has replaced Dreedle as the new wing commander. Because Peckem is close to Colonel Cathcart, the chaplain doesn't stand a chance.

Chapter 37: General Scheisskopf

Scheisskopf has been promoted to lieutenant general and is now General Peckem's commanding officer. Peckem's bad luck is his own fault. Hoping to gain control over multiple army divisions, he has long sent memoranda to army headquarters asking that his combat operations unit be put under Special Services. The army finally complied with his suggestion, but only after Scheisskopf had been put in charge of Special Services. Thus, the army followed Peckem's suggestion, but put Scheisskopf in charge rather than Peckem. Scheisskopf's first order of business is to reinstate his beloved parades and get everyone marching.

Chapter 38: Kid Sister

Yossarian bears the news of Nately's death to the whore in Rome. Heartbroken and furious, she brutally assaults Yossarian with animalistic rage. She has always hated Yossarian - probably because he broke Nately's nose on Thanksgiving - but now she really wants to kill him. She stalks him throughout Rome and Pianosa, jumping out from the darkness wielding knives.

Yossarian refuses to fly more missions. Fellow soldiers are eager to see if he will get away with it and constantly pop out of nowhere to ask him how he is doing. Major Major has disappeared. Captain Black and Hungry Joe inform Yossarian that the whores in Rome have been driven out of their brothel. Yossarian feels sorry and worries about Nately's whore's kid sister, who is only twelve.

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Chapter 39: The Eternal City

Yossarian goes AWOL (absent without official leave) and flies to Rome with Milo in search of the vulnerable kid sister. The rebel has come to hate flying and is blamed for harming army morale.

"Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them." Chapter 39, pg. 415

Rome is in ruins. The whore's dwelling is empty except for an old woman. Moaning, she explains that soldiers successfully drove the whores out into the streets because of Catch-22, which states that soldiers have the right to do anything that people cannot stop them from doing. Yossarian suddenly realizes that Catch-22 is a fabrication. Yet his discovery makes no difference. People still believe in Catch-22, so it retains its illogical power.

Milo promises to use his clout in Rome to assist Yossarian in the search for kid sister. Soon distracted by trade prospects in illegal tobacco, Milo ditches the search and leaves Yossarian alone to wander the raw, bizarre alleyways. Yossarian is shocked to discover that Aarfy has raped and murdered a poor servant girl. Police burst in and surprisingly arrest Yossarian instead of Aarfy for being in Rome without a pass. Officials haul Yossarian into Colonel Cathcart's office and Colonel Korn says they are sending Yossarian home.

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Chapter 40: Catch-22

Yossarian's refusal to fly has been a thorn in Colonel Cathcart's side - a real "black eye." Cathcart and Korn offer Yossarian the chance to go home, but there is a catch. In exchange for his discharge, Yossarian must glorify and befriend both Cathcart and Korn. They will send him home as a hero with medals and high rank if he promises to praise the colonels and glorify their reputation. He must sell-out. If Yossarian rejects the deal, Cathcart and Korn threaten to court-martial him for abandonment during his unauthorized trip to Rome. Yossarian realizes the deal is selfish and a betrayal of his fellow men in combat, who must still suffer under the unfair multiplication of missions. He accepts the deal. Leaving Cathcart's office, Yossarian's joy is cut short when Nately's whore, disguised as a private, plunges a knife into his side.

Chapter 41: Snowden

Yossarian awakens in the hospital where several incompetent doctors quibble over performing unnecessary surgery on Yossarian's wound. The chaplain visits and praises Yossarian for protecting Colonel Cathcart from a Nazi assassin. Yossarian recognizes the lie and tells the chaplain that it was Nately's whore who stabbed him, not a Nazi murderer. The chaplain is disappointed when Yossarian explains Colonel Cathcart's despicable bargain. Yossarian redeems his honor when he decides against the deal.

Hungry Joe has died in his sleep, suffocated by Huple's cat, and Yossarian realizes that most of his friends are gone. A mysterious man in a bathrobe seizes Yossarian in the night and torments him by repeating, "We've got your pal, buddy. We've got your pal." Chapter 41, pg. 446. Disturbed, Yossarian lies awake in a cold sweat and thinks of Snowden. Neatly bandaging the large wound in Snowden's thigh, Yossarian thought the poor kid was in the clear. Upon closer inspection, though, Yossarian realized a chunk of flak had ripped through his side. Covered in Snowden's gory entrails, Yossarian would long be haunted by Snowden's dying whimpers and his own inability to comfort or cure him.

Chapter 42: Yossarian

Fretful Major Danby is disturbed when Yossarian breaks Colonel Cathcart's deal. The chaplain brings Yossarian the thrilling news that Orr has washed ashore in Sweden after many weeks at sea. Yossarian realizes that Orr fooled everyone! He was not the dumb, apple-cheeked, blundering pilot that he pretended to be. Instead, Orr ingeniously rehearsed his escape with every planned crash-landing. The whore hit him over the head with her shoe in Rome because he paid her to do so! Orr bugged Yossarian about flying with him because he wanted to save Yossarian, too! In a rush of excitement, Yossarian decides to run away. He will save the kid sister in Rome and then join Orr in Sweden. Similarly energized, the chaplain realizes with bursting confidence that he can stand up to his tormentors and endure. The chaplain cheers, "Run away to Sweden, Yossarian. And I'll stay here and persevere. Yes. I'll persevere. I'll nag and badger Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn every time I see them. I'm not afraid." Chapter 42, pg. 461 Major Danby warmly cautions Yossarian to stay alert and safe. Just in the nick of time, Yossarian sidesteps a murderous strike from the whore's plunging knife and bolts away.

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