American Literature books summary

American Literature books summary

soldier can be discharged. The previous number was forty-five. Yossarian

has flown forty missions.

Yossarian talks to Orr, who tells him an irritating story about how he

liked to keep crab apples in his cheeks when he was younger. Yossarian

briefly remembers the time a whore had beaten Orr over the head with her

shoe in Rome outside Nately's whore's kid sister's room. Yossarian notices

that Orr is even smaller than Huple, who lives near Hungry Joe's tent.

Hungry Joe has nightmares whenever he isn't scheduled to fly a mission the

next day; his screaming keeps the whole camp awake. Hungry Joe's tent is

near a road where the men sometimes pick up girls and take them out to the

the tall grass near the open-air movie theater that a U.S.O. troupe visited

that same afternoon. The troupe was sent by an ambitious general named P.P.

Peckem, who hopes to take over the command of Yossarian's wing from General

Dreedle. General Peckem's troubleshooter Colonel Cargill, who used to be a

spectacular failure as a marketing executive and who is now a spectacular

failure as a colonel. Yossarian feels sick, but Doc Daneeka still refuses

to ground him. Doc Daneeka advises Yossarian to be like Havermeyer and make

the best of it; Havermeyer is a fearless lead bombardier. Yossarian thinks

that he himself is a lead bombardier filled with a very healthy fear.

Havermeyer likes to shoot mice in the middle of the night; once, he woke

Hungry Joe and caused him to dive into one of the slit trenchs that have

appeared nightly beside every tent since Milo Minderbinder, the mess

officer, bombed the squadron.

Hungry Joe is crazy, and though Yossarian tries to help him, Hungry Joe

won't listen to his advice because he thinks Yossarian is crazy. Doc

Daneeka doesn't believe Hungry Joe has problems--he thinks only he has

problems, because his lucrative medical practice was ended by the war.

Yossarian remembers trying to disrupt the educational meeting in Captain

Black's intelligence tent by asking unanswerable questions, which caused

Group Headquarters to make a rule that the only people who could ask

questions were the ones who never did. This rule comes from Colonel

Cathcart and Lieutenant Colonel Korn, who also approved the skeet shooting

range where Yossarian can never hit anything. Dunbar loves shooting skeet

because he hates it and it makes the time go more slowly; his goal is to

live as long as possible by slowing down time, so he loves boredom and

discomfort, and he argues about this with Clevinger.

Doc Daneeka lives in a tent with an alcoholic Indian named Chief White

Halfoat, where he tells Yossarian about some sexually inept newlyweds he

had in his office once. Chief White Halfoat comes in and tells Yossarian

that Doc Daneeka is crazy and then relates the story of his own family:

everywhere they went, someone struck oil, and so oil companies sent agents

and equipment to follow them wherever they went. Doc Daneeka still refuses

to ground Yossarian, who asks if he would be grounded if he were crazy. Doc

Daneeka says yes, and Yossarian decides to go crazy. But that solution is

too easy: there is a catch. Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian about Catch-22,

which holds that, to be grounded for insanity, a pilot must ask to be

grounded, but that any pilot who asks to be grounded must be sane.

Impressed, Yossarian takes Doc Daneeka's word for it, just as he had taken

Orr's word about the flies in Appleby's eyes. Orr insists there are flies

in Appleby's eyes, and though Yossarian has no idea what Orr means, he

believes Orr because he has never lied to him before. They once told

Appleby about the flies, so that Appleby was worried on the way to a

briefing, after which they all took off in B-25s for a bombing run.

Yossarian shouted directions to the pilot, McWatt, to avoid antiaircraft

fire while Yossarian dropped the bombs. Another time while they were taking

evasive action Dobbs went crazy and started screaming "Help him," while the

plane spun out of control and Yossarian believed he was going to die. In

the back of the plane, Snowden was dying.

Chapters 6-10

Hungry Joe has his fifty missions, but the orders to send him home

never come, and he continues to scream all through every night. Doc Daneeka

persists in feeling sorry for himself while ignoring Hungry Joe's problems.

Hungry Joe is driven crazy by noises, and is mad with lust--he is desperate

to take pictures of naked women, but the pictures never come out. He

pretends to be an important Life magazine photographer, and the irony is

that he really was a photographer for Life before the war. Hungry Joe has

flown six tours of duty, but every time he finishes one Colonel Cathcart

raises the number of missions required before Hungry Joe is sent home. When

this happens, the nightmares stop until Hungry Joe finishes another tour.

Colonel Cathcart is very brave about sending his men into dangerous

situations--no situation is too dangerous, just as no ping-pong shot is too

hard for Appleby. One night Orr attacked Appleby in the middle of a game; a

fight broke out, and Chief White Halfoat busted Colonel Moodus, General

Dreedle's son-in-law, in the nose. General Dreedle enjoyed that so much he

kept calling Chief White Halfoat in to repeat the performance--but the

Indian remains a marginal figure in the camp, much like Major Major, who

was promoted to squadron commander while playing basketball and who has

been ostracized ever since. Also, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen explains to

Yossarian how Catch-22 requires him to fly the extra missions Colonel

Cathcart orders, even though Twenty-Seventh Air Force regulations only

demand forty missions.

Yossarian's pilot, McWatt, is possibly the craziest of all the men,

because he is perfectly sane but he does not mind the war. He is smiling

and polite and loves to whistle show tunes. He is impressed with Milo--but

not as impressed as Milo was with the letter Yossarian got from Doc Daneeka

about his liver, which ordered the mess hall to give Yossarian all the

fresh fruit he wanted, which, in turn, Yossarian refused to eat, because if

his liver improved he couldn't go to the hospital whenever he wanted. Milo

is involved in the black market, and he tries to convince Yossarian to go

in with him in selling the fruit, but Yossarian refuses. Milo is indignant

when he learns that a C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Division) man is

searching for a criminal who has been forging Washington Irving's name in

censored letters--it is Yossarian who used to pass time in the hospital by

writing the letters. But Milo is convinced the C.I.D. man is trying to set

him up because of his black market activity. Milo wants to organize the men

into a syndicate, as he demonstrates by returning McWatt's stolen bedsheet

in pieces--half for McWatt, a quarter for Milo, and so on. Milo has a grasp

on some confusing economics: he manages to make a profit buying eggs in

Malta for seven cents apiece and selling them in Pianosa for five cents

apiece.

Not even Clevinger understands that, but though he is a dope, he

usually understands everything, except why Yossarian insists that so many

people are trying to kill him. Yossarian remembers training in America with

Clevinger under Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who was obsessed with parades, and

whose wife, along with her friend Dori Duz, used to sleep with all the men

under her husband's command. Lieutenant Scheisskopf hated Clevinger, and

finally got him sent to trial under a belligerant colonel. Clevinger is

stunned when he realizes that Lieutenant Scheisskopf and the colonel truly

hate him, in a way that no enemy soldier ever could.

Given a horrible name at birth because of his father's horrible sense

of humor, Major Major Major was chagrined when, the day he joined the army,

he was promoted to Major by an IBM machine with an equally horrible sense

of humor, making him Major Major Major Major. Major Major Major Major also

looks vaguely like Henry Fonda, and did so well in school that he was

suspected of being a Communist and monitored by the FBI. His sudden

promotion stunned his drill sergeant, who had to train a man who was

suddenly his superior officer. Luckily, Major Major applied for aviation

cadet training, and was sent to Lieutenant Scheisskopf. Not long after

arriving in Pianosa, he was made squadron commander by an irate Colonel

Cathcart, after which he lost all his new friends. Major Major has always

been a drab, mediocre sort of person, and had never had friends before; he

lapses into an awkward depression and refuses to be seen in his office

except when he isn't there. To make himself feel better, Major Major forges

Washington Irving's name to official documents. He is confused about

everything, including his official relationship to Major ----- de Coverley,

his executive officer: He doesn't know whether he is Major ----- de

Coverlay's subordinate, or vice versa. A C.I.D. man comes to investigate

the Washington Irving scandal, but Major Major denies knowledge, and the

incompetent C.I.D. man believes him--as does another C.I.D. man who arrives

shortly thereafter, then leaves to investigate the first C.I.D. man. Major

Major takes to wearing dark glasses and a false mustache when forging

Washington Irving's name. One day Major Major is tackled by Yossarian, who

demands to be grounded. Sadly, Major Major tells Yossarian that there is

nothing he can do.

Clevinger's plane disappeared in a cloud off the coast of Elba, and he

is presumed dead. Yossarian finds the disappearance as stunning as that of

a whole squadron of sixty-four men who all deserted in one day. Then he

tells ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen the news, but ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen isn't

impressed with the disappearance. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen continually goes

AWOL, then is required to dig holes and fill them up again--work he seems

to enjoy. One day ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen nicked a water pipe, and water

sprayed everywhere, leading to mass confusion much like that of the night

seven months later when Milo bombed the camp. Word spread that the water

was oil, and Chief White Halfoat was kicked off the base. Around this time,

Appleby tried to turn Yossarian in for not taking his Atabrine tablets, but

the only time he was allowed to go into Major Major's office was when Major

Major wasn't there. Yossarian remembers Mudd, a soldier who died

immediately after arriving at the camp, and whose belongings are still in

Yossarian's tent. The belongings are contaminated with death in the same

way that the whole camp was contaminated before the deadly mission of the

Great Big Siege of Bologna, for which Colonel Cathcart bravely volunteered

his men. During this time even sick men were not allowed to be grounded by

doctors. Dr. Stubbs is overwhelmed with cynicism, and asks what the point

is of saving lives when everyone dies anyway. Dunbar says that the point is

to live as long as you can and forget about the fact that you will

eventually die.

Chapters 11-16

Captain Black is pleased to hear the news that Colonel Cathcart has

volunteered the men for the lethally dangerous mission of bombing Bologna.

Captain Black thinks the men are bastards, and gloats about their

terrifying, violent task. Captain Black is extremely ambitious, and hoped

to be promoted to squadron commander; when Major Major was picked over him,

he lapsed into a deep depression, which the Bologna mission lifts him out

of. Captain Black first tried to get revenge on Major Major by initiating

the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade, when he forced all the men to swear

elaborate oaths of loyalty before doing basic things like eating meals. He

refused to let Major Major sign a loyalty oath, and hoped thereby to make

him appear disloyal. The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a major event in

the camp, until the fearsome Major ----- de Coverley put a stop to it by

hollering "Give me eat!" in the mess hall without signing an oath.

It rains interminably before the Bologna mission, and the bombing run

is delayed by the rain. The men all hope it will never stop raining, and

when it does, Yossarian moves the bomb line on the map so that the

commanding officers will think Bologna has already been captured. Then the

rain starts again. In the meantime, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen tries to sell

Yossarian a cigarette lighter, thus going into competition with Milo as a

black market trader. He is aghast that Milo has cornered the entire world

market for Egyptian cotton but is unable to unload any of it. The men are

terrified and miserable over Bologna. Clevenger and Yossarian argue about

whether it is Yossarian's duty to bomb Bologna, and by the middle of the

second week of waiting, everyone in the squadron looks like Hungry Joe. One

night Yossarian, Nately, and Dunbar go for a drunken drive with Chief White

Halfoat; they crash the jeep, and realize it has stopped raining. Back in

the tents, Hungry Joe is trying to shoot Huple's cat, which has been giving

him nightmares, and the men force Hungry Joe to fight the cat fairly. The

cat runs away, and Hungry Joe is the self-satisfied winner; then he goes

back to sleep and has another nightmare about the cat.

Major ----- de Coverley is a daunting, majestic man with a lion's mane

of white hair, an eagle's gaze, and a transparent eyepatch. Everyone is

afraid of him, and no one will talk to him. His sole duties include

travelling to major cities captured by the Americans and renting rooms for

his men to take rest leaves in; he spends the rest of his time playing

horseshoes. He is so good at his room- renting duties that he always

manages to be photographed with the first wave of American troops moving

into a city, a fact which perplexes both the enemy and the American

commanders. Major ----- de Coverley is a force of nature, but when

Yossarian moved the bomb line, he was fooled and traveled to enemy-

controlled Bologna; he still has not returned. Once, Milo approached him on

the horseshoe range and convinced him to authorize Milo to import eggs with

Air Force planes. This elated the men, except for Colonel Cathcart, whose

spur-of-the-moment attempt to promote Major Major failed, unlike his

attempt to give Yossarian a medal some time earlier, which succeeded. Back

when Yossarian was brave, he circled over a target twice in order to hit

it; on the second overpass, Mudd was killed by shrapnel. The authorities

didn't know how to rebuke Yossarian for his foolhardiness, so they decided

to stave off criticism by giving him a medal.

The squadron finally receives the go-ahead to bomb Bologna, and by this

time Yossarian doesn't feel like going over the target even once. He

pretends that his plane's intercom system is broken and orders his men to

turn back. They land at the deserted airfield just before dawn, feeling

strangely morose; Yossarian takes a nap on the beach and wakes up when the

planes fly back. Not a single plane has been hit. Yossarian thinks that

there must have been too many clouds for the men to bomb the city, and that

they will have to make another attempt, but he is wrong. There was no

antiaircraft fire, and the city was bombed with no losses to the Americans.

Captain Pilchard and Captain Wren ineffectually reprimand Yossarian and

his crew for turning back, then inform the men that they will have to bomb

Bologna again, as they missed the ammunition dumps the first time.

Yossarian confidently flies in, assuming there will be no antiaircraft

fire, and is stunned when shrapnel begins firing up toward him through the

skies. He furiously directs McWatt through evasive maneuvers, and fights

with the strangely cheerful Aarfy until the bombs are dropped; Yossarian

doesn't die, and the plane lands safely. He heads immediately for emergency

rest leave in Rome, where he meets Luciana the same night.

Luciana is a beautiful Italian girl Yossarian meets at a bar in Rome.

After he buys her dinner and dances with her, she agrees to sleep with him,

but not right then--she will come to his room the next morning. She does,

then angrily refuses to sleep with Yossarian until she cleans his room--she

disgustedly calls him a pig. Finally, she lets him sleep with her.

Afterward, Yossarian falls in love with her and asks her to marry him; she

says she can't marry him because he's crazy, and he's crazy because he

wants to marry her, because no one in their right mind would marry a girl

who wasn't a virgin. She tells him about a scar she got when the Americans

bombed her town. Suddenly, Hungry Joe rushes in with his camera, and

Yossarian and Luciana have to get dressed. Laughing, they go outside, where

they part ways. Luciana gives Yossarian her number, telling him she expects

that he will tear it up as soon as she leaves, self-impressed that such a

pretty girl would sleep with him for free. He asks her why on Earth he

would do such a thing. As soon as she leaves, Yossarian, self-impressed

that such a pretty girl would sleep with him for free, tears up her number.

Almost immediately, he regrets it, and, after learning that Colonel

Cathcart has raised the number of missions to forty, he makes the anguished

decision to go straight to the hospital.

Chapters 17-21

Things are better at the hospital, Yossarian decides, than they are on

a bomb run with Snowden dying in the back whispering "I'm cold." At the

hospital, Death is orderly and polite, and there is no inexplicable

violence. Dunbar is in the hospital with Yossarian, and they are both

perplexed by the soldier in white, a man completely covered in plaster

bandages. The men in the hospital discuss the injustice of mortality--some

men are killed and some aren't, some men get sick and some don't, with no

reference to who deserves what. Some time earlier Clevinger saw justice in

it, but Yossarian was too busy keeping track of all the forces trying to

kill him to listen. Later, he and Hungry Joe collect lists of fatal

diseases with which they worry Doc Daneeka, who is the only person who can

ground Yossarian, according to Major Major. Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian to

fly his fifty-five missions, and he'll think about helping him.

The first time Yossarian ever goes to the hospital, he is still a

private. He feigns an abdominal pain, then mimics the mysterious ailment of

the soldier who saw everything twice. He spends Thanksgiving in the

hospital, and vows to spend all future Thanksgivings there; but he spends

the next Thanksgiving in bed with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, arguing

about God. Once Yossarian is "cured" of seeing everything twice, he is

asked to pretend to be a dying soldier for a mother and father who have

traveled to see their son, who died that morning. Yossarian allows them to

bandage his face, and pretends to be the soldier.

The ambitious Colonel Cathcart browbeats the chaplain, demanding prayer

before each bombing run, then abandons the idea when he realizes that the

Saturday Evening Post, where he got the idea, probably wouldn't give him

any publicity for it. The chaplain timidly mentions that some of the men

have complained about Colonel Cathcart's habit of raising the number of

missions required every few weeks, but Colonel Cathcart ignores him. On his

way home, the chaplain meets Colonel Korn, Colonel Cathcart's wily, cynical

sidekick, who mocks Colonel Cathcart in front of the chaplain and is highly

suspicious of the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart gave the chaplain. At his

tent in the woods, the chaplain encounters the hostile Corporal Whitcomb,

his atheist assistant, who resents him deeply for holding back his career.

Corporal Whitcomb tells the chaplain that a C.I.D. man suspects him of

signing Washington Irving's name to official papers, and of stealing plum

tomatoes. The poor chaplain is very unhappy, helpless to improve anyone's

life.

Colonel Cathcart is preoccupied with the problem of Yossarian, who has

become a real black eye for him, most recently by complaining about the

number of missions, but previously by appearing naked at his own medal

ceremony shortly after Snowden's death. Colonel Cathcart wishes he knew how

to solve the problem and impress General Dreedle, his commanding officer.

General Dreedle doesn't care what his men do, as long as they remain

reliable military quantities. He travels everywhere with a buxom nurse, and

worries mostly about Colonel Moodus, his despised son in law, whom he

occasionally asks Chief White Halfoat to punch in the nose. Once Colonel

Korn tried to undercut Colonel Cathcart by giving a flamboyant briefing to

impress General Dreedle; General Dreedle told Colonel Cathcart that Colonel

Korn made him sick.

Chapters 22-26

Yossarian loses his nerve on the mission that follows Colonel Korn's

extravagant briefing, the mission where Snowden is killed and spattered all

over Yossarian's uniform when Dobbs goes crazy and seizes the plane's

controls from Huple. As he dies, Snowden pleads with Yossarian to help him;

he says he is cold. Dobbs is a terrible pilot and a wreck of a man, and he

later tells Yossarian he plans to kill Colonel Cathcart before he raises

the mission total again; he asks Yossarian to give him the go-ahead, but

Yossarian is unable to do so, so Dobbs abandons his plan. Yossarian thinks

that Dobbs is almost as bad as Orr, with whom Yossarian and Milo recently

took a trip to stock up on supplies. As they travel, Orr and Yossarian

gradually realize the extent of Milo's control over the black market and

vast international influence: he is the mayor of Palermo, the Assistant

Governor-General of Malta, the Vice-Shah of Oran, the Caliph of Baghdad,

the Imam of Damascus, the Sheik of Araby, and is worshipped as a god in

parts of Africa. Each region has embraced him because he revitalized their

economy with his syndicate, in which everybody has a share. Nevertheless,

throughout their trip, Orr and Yossarian are forced to sleep in the plane

while Milo enjoys lavish palaces, and they are finally awakened in the

middle of the night so that Milo can rush his shipment of red bananas to

their next stop.

One evening Nately finds his whore in Rome again after a long search.

He tries to convince Yossarian and Aarfy to take two of her friends for

thirty dollars each. Aarfy objects that he has never had to pay for sex.

Nately's whore is sick of Nately, and begins to swear at him; then Hungry

Joe arrives, and the group abandons Aarfy and goes to the apartment

building where the girls live. Here they find a seemingly endless flow of

naked young women; Hungry Joe is torn between taking in the scene and

rushing back for his camera. Nately argues with an old man who lives at the

building about nationalism and moral duty--the old man claims Italy is

doing better than America in the war because it has already been occupied,

so Italian boys are no longer being killed. He gleefully admits to swearing

loyalty to whatever nation happens to be in power. The patriotic,

idealistic Nately cannot believe his ears, and argues somewhat haltingly

for America's international supremacy and the values it represents. But he

is troubled because, though they are absolutely nothing alike, the old man

reminds him of his father.

By April, Milo's influence is massive. The mess officer controls the

international black market, plays a major role in the world economy, and

uses Air Force planes from countries all over the world to carry shipments

of his supplies; the planes are repainted with an "M & M Enterprises" logo,

but Milo continues to insist that everybody has a share in his syndicate.

Milo contracts with the Germans to bomb the Americans, and with the

Americans to shoot down German planes. German anti-aircraft guns contracted

by Milo even shot down Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent, for which

Yossarian holds a grudge against Milo. Milo wants Yossarian's help

concocting a solution for unloading his massive holdings of Egyptian

cotton, which he cannot sell and which threatens to ruin his entire

operation. One evening after dinner, Milo's planes begin to bomb Milo's own

camp: He has landed another contract with the Germans, and dozens of men

are wounded and killed during the attack. Almost everyone wants to end M &

M Enterprises right then, but Milo shows them how much money they have all

made, and the survivors almost all forgive him. While Yossarian sits naked

in a tree watching Snowden's funeral, Milo seeks him out to talk to him

about the cotton; he gives Yossarian some chocolate-covered cotton and

tries to convince him it is really candy. Yossarian tells Milo to ask the

government to buy his cotton, and Milo is struck by the intelligence behind

the idea.

The chaplain is troubled. No one seems to treat him as a regular human

being; everyone is uncomfortable in his presence, he is intimidated by the

soldiers--especially Colonel Cathcart--and he is generally ineffectual as a

religious leader. He grows increasingly miserable, and is sustained solely

by the thought of the religious visions he has seen since his arrival, such

as the vision of the naked man in the tree at Snowden's funeral. Of course,

the naked man was Yossarian. He dreams of his wife and children dying

horribly in his absence. He tries to see Major Major about the number of

missions the men are asked to fly, but, like everyone else, finds that

Major Major will not allow him into his office except when he is out. On

the way to see Major Major a second time, the chaplain encounters Flume,

Chief White Halfoat's old roommate who is so afraid of having his throat

slit while he sleeps that he has taken to living in the forest. The

chaplain then learns that Corporal Whitcomb has been promoted to sergeant

by Colonel Cathcart for an idea that the colonel believes will land him in

the Saturday Evening Post. The chaplain tries to mingle with the men at the

officers' club, but Colonel Cathcart periodically throws him out. The

chaplain takes to doubting everything, even God.

The night Nately falls in love with his whore, she sits naked from the

waist down in a room full of enlisted men playing blackjack. She is already

sick of Nately, and tries to interest one of the enlisted men, but none of

them notice her. Nately follows her out, then to the officers' apartments

in Rome, where she tries the same trick on Nately's friends. Aarfy calls

her a slut, and Nately is deeply offended. Aarfy is the navigator of the

flight on which Yossarian is finally hit by flak; he is wounded in the leg

and taken to the hospital, where he and Dunbar change identities by

ordering lower-ranking men to trade beds with them. Dunbar pretends to be

A. Fortiori. Finally they are caught by Nurse Cramer and Nurse Duckett, who

takes Yossarian by the ear and puts him back to bed.

Chapters 27-31

The next morning, while Nurse Duckett is smoothing the sheets at the

foot of his bed, Yossarian thrusts his hand up her skirt. She shrieks and

rushes away, and Dunbar grabs her bosom from behind. When she is finally

rescued by a furious doctor, Yossarian tries to plead insanity--he says he

has a recurring dream about a fish--so he is assigned an appointment with

Major Sanderson, the hospital psychiatrist. Sanderson is more interested in

discussing his own problems than his patient's. Yossarian's friends visit

him in the hospital--Dobbs offers again to kill Colonel Cathcart--and

finally, after Yossarian admits that he thinks people are trying to kill

him and that he has not adjusted to the war, Major Sanderson decides that

Yossarian really is crazy and decides to send him home. But because of the

identity mixup perpetrated by Yossarian and Dunbar earlier in their

hospital stay, there is a mistake, and A. Fortiori is sent home instead.

Furiously, Yossarian goes to see Doc Daneeka, but Doc Daneeka will not

ground Yossarian for reasons of insanity. Who else but a crazy man, he

asks, would go out to fight?

Yossarian goes to see Dobbs, and tells him to go ahead and kill Colonel

Cathcart. But Dobbs has finished his sixty missions, and is waiting to be

sent home; he no longer needs to kill Colonel Cathcart. When Yossarian says

that Colonel Cathcart will simply raise the number of missions again, Dobbs

says he'll wait and see, but that perhaps Orr would help Yossarian kill the

colonel. Orr crashed his plane again while Yossarian was in the hospital

and was fished out of the ocean--none of the life jackets in his plane

worked, because Milo took out the carbon dioxide tanks to use for making

ice-cream sodas. Now, Orr is tinkering with the stove he is trying to build

in his and Yossarian's tent; he suggests that Yossarian should try flying a

mission with him for practice in case he ever has to make a crash landing.

Yossarian broods about the rumored second mission to Bologna. Orr is making

noise and irritating him, and Yossarian imagines killing him, which

Yossarian finds a relaxing thought. They talk about women--Orr says they

don't like Yossarian, and Yossarian replies that they're crazy. Orr tells

Yossarian that he knows Yossarian has asked not to fly with him, and offers

to tell Yossarian the story of why that naked girl was hitting him with her

shoe outside Nately's whore's kid sister's room in Rome. Yossarian

laughingly declines, and the next time Orr goes up he again crashes his

plane into the ocean. This time, his survival raft drifts away from the

others and disappears.

The men are dismayed when they learn that General Peckem has had

Scheisskopf, now a colonel, transferred onto his staff. Peckem is pleased

because he thinks the move will increase his strength compared to that of

his rival General Dreedle. Colonel Scheisskopf is dismayed by the news that

he will no longer be able to conduct parades every afternoon. Scheisskopf

immediately irritates his colleagues in Group Headquarters, and Peckem

takes him along for an inspection of Colonel Cathcart's squadron briefing.

At the preliminary briefing, the men are displeased to learn they will be

bombing an undefended village into rubble simply so that Colonel Cathcart

can impress General Peckem with the clean aerial photography their bomb

patterns will allow. When Peckem and Scheisskopf arrive, Cathcart is angry

that another colonel has appeared to rival him. He gives the briefing

himself, and though he feels shaky and unconfident, he makes it through,

and congratulates himself on a job well done under pressure.

On the bombing run, Yossarian flashes back to the mission when Snowden

died, and he snaps. During evasive action, he threatens to kill McWatt if

he doesn't follow orders. He is worried that McWatt will hold a grudge, but

after the mission McWatt only seems concerned about Yossarian. Yossarian

has begun seeing Nurse Duckett, and he enjoys making love to her on the

beach. Sometimes, while they sit looking at the ocean, Yossarian thinks

about all the people who have died underwater, including Orr and Clevinger.

One day, McWatt is buzzing the beach in his plane as a joke, when a gust of

wind causes the plane to drop for a split second--just long enough for the

propellor to slice Kid Sampson in half. Kid Samson's body splatters all

over the beach. Back at the base, everyone is occupied with the disaster;

McWatt will not land his plane, but keeps flying higher and higher.

Yossarian runs down the runway yelling at McWatt to come down, but he knows

what McWatt is going to do, and McWatt does it, crashing his plane into the

side of a mountain, killing himself. Colonel Cathcart is so upset that he

raises the number of missions to sixty-five.

When Colonel Cathcart learns that Doc Daneeka was also killed in the

crash, he raises the number of missions to seventy. Actually, Doc Daneeka

was not killed in the crash, but the records--which Doc Daneeka, hating to

fly, bribed Yossarian to alter--maintain that the doctor was in the plane

with McWatt, collecting some flight time. Doc Daneeka is startled to hear

that he is dead, but Doc Daneeka's wife in America, who receives a letter

to that effect from the military, is shattered. Heroically, she finds the

strength to carry on, and is cheered to learn that she will be receiving a

number of monthly payments from various military departments for the rest

of her life, as well as sizable life insurance payments from her husband's

insurance company. Husbands of her friends begin to flirt with her, and she

dies her hair. In Pianosa, Doc Daneeka finds himself ostracized by the men,

who blame him for the raise in the number of missions they are required to

fly. He is no longer allowed to practice medicine and realizes that, in one

sense, he really is dead. He sends a passionate letter to his wife begging

her to alert the authorities that he is still alive. She considers the

possibility, but after receiving a form letter from Colonel Cathcart

expressing regret over her husband's death, she moves her children to

Lansing, Michigan and leaves no forwarding address.

Chapters 32-37

The cold weather comes, and Kid Sampson's legs are left on the beach;

no one will retrieve them. The first things Yossarian remembers when he

wakes up each morning are Kid Sampson's legs and Snowden. When Orr never

returns, Yossarian is given four new roommates, a group of shiny-faced

twenty- one year-olds who have never seen combat. They clown around,

calling Yossarian "Yo-Yo" and rousing in him a murderous hatred. Yossarian

tries to convince Chief White Halfoat to move in with them and scare the

new officers away, but Halfoat has decided to move into the hospital to die

of pneumonia. Slowly, Yossarian begins to feel more protective toward the

men, but then they burn Orr's birch logs and suddenly move Mudd's

belongings out of the tent--the dead man who has lived there for so long is

abruptly gone. Yossarian panics and flees to Rome with Hungry Joe the night

before Nately's whore finally gets a good night's sleep and wakes up in

love.

In Rome, Yossarian misses Nurse Duckett and goes searching in vain for

Luciana. Nately languishes in bed with his whore, when suddenly Nately's

whore's kid sister dives into bed with them. Nately begins to cherish wild

fantasies of moving his whore and her sister back to America and bringing

the sister up like his own child, but when his whore hears that he no

longer wants her to go out hustling she becomes furious, and an argument

ensues. The other men try to intervene, and Nately tries to convince them

that they can all move to the same suburb and work for his father. He tries

to forbid his whore from ever speaking again to the old man in the whores'

hotel, and she becomes even angrier, but she still misses Nately when he

leaves and is furious with Yossarian when he punches Nately in the face,

breaking his nose.

Yossarian breaks Nately's nose on Thansksgiving, after Milo gets all

the men drunk on bottles of cheap whiskey. Yossarian goes to bed early, but

wakes up to the sound of machine gun fire. At first he is terrified, but he

quickly realizes that a group of men are firing machine guns as a prank. He

is furious, and takes his .45 in pursuit of revenge. Nately tries to stop

him, and Yossarian breaks his nose. He fires at someone in the darkness,

but when a return shot comes Yossarian recognizes it as Dunbar's. He and

Dunbar call out to each other, and go back to help Nately. They cannot find

him, and discover him in the hospital the next morning. Yossarian feels

terribly guilty for having broken Nately's nose. They encounter the

chaplain in the hospital; he has lied to get in, claiming to have a disease

called Wisconsin shingles, and feels wonderful--he has learned how to

rationalize vice into virtue. Suddenly the soldier in white is wheeled into

the room, and Dunbar panics; he begins screaming, and soon everyone in the

ward joins in. Nurse Duckett warns Yossarian that she overheard some

doctors talking about how they planned to "disappear" Dunbar. Yossarian

goes to warn his friend, but cannot find him.

When Chief White Halfoat finally dies of pneumonia and Nately finishes

his seventy missions, Yossarian prays for the first time in his life,

asking God to keep Nately from volunteering to fly more than seventy

missions. But Nately does not want to be sent home until he can take his

whore with him. Yossarian goes for help from Milo, who immediately goes to

see Colonel Cathcart about having himself assigned to more combat missions.

Milo has finally been exposed as the tyrannical fraud he is; he has no

intention of giving anyone a real share of the syndicate--but his power and

influence are at their peak and everyone admires him. He feels guilty for

not doing his duty and flying missions, and asks the deferential Colonel

Cathcart to assign him to more dangerous combat duties. Milo tells Colonel

Cathcart that someone else will have to run the syndicate, and Colonel

Cathcart volunteers himself and Colonel Korn. When Milo explains the

complex operations of the business to Cathcart, the colonel declares Milo

the only man who could possibly run it, and forbids Milo from flying

another combat mission. He suggests that he might make the other men fly

Milo's missions for him, and if one of those men wins a medal, Milo will

get the medal. To enable this, he says, he will ratchet the number of

required missions up to eighty. The next morning the alarm sounds and the

men fly off on a mission that turns out to be particularly deadly. Twelve

men are killed, including Dobbs and Nately.

The chaplain is devastated by Nately's death. When he learns that

twelve men have been killed, he prays that Yossarian, Hungry Joe, Nately,

and his other friends will not be among them. But when he rides out to the

field, he understands from the despairing look on Yossarian's face that

Nately is dead. Suddenly, the Chaplain is dragged away by a group of

military police who accuse him of an unspecified crime. He is interrogated

by a colonel who claims the chaplain has forged his name in letters--his

only evidence is a letter Yossarian forged in the hospital and signed with

the chaplain's name some time ago. Then he accuses the chaplain of stealing

the plum tomato from Colonel Cathcart and of being Washington Irving. The

men in the room idiotically find him guilty of unspecified crimes they

assume he has committed, then order him to go about his business while they

think of a way to punish him. The chaplain leaves and furiously goes to

confront Colonel Korn about the number of missions the men are required to

fly. He tells Colonel Korn he plans to bring the matter directly to General

Dreedle's attention, but the colonel replies gleefully that General Dreedle

has been replaced with General Peckem as wing commander. He then tells the

chaplain that he and Colonel Cathcart can make the men fly as many missions

as they want to make them fly--they've even transferred Dr. Stubbs, who had

offerred to ground any man with seventy missions, to the Pacific.

General Peckem's victory sours quickly. On his first day in charge of

General Dreedle's old operation, he learns that Scheisskopf has been

promoted to lieutenant general and is now the commanding officer for all

combat operations: He is in charge of General Peckem and his entire group.

And he intends to make every single man present march in parades.

Chapters 38-42

Yossarian marches around backwards so no one can sneak up behind him

and refuses to fly in any more combat missions. When they are informed of

this, Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn decide to take brief pity on

Yossarian for the death of his friend Nately, and send him to Rome, where

he breaks the news of Nately's death to Nately's whore, who tries to kill

Yossarian with a potato peeler for bringer her the bad news. When he

resists, she tries to seduce him, then stabs at him with a knife again when

he seems to have relaxed. Nately's whore's kid sister materializes, and

tries to stab Yossarian as well. Yossarian loses patience, picks up

Nately's whore's kid sister and throws her bodily at Nately's whore, then

leaves the apartment. He notices people are staring at him, and suddenly

realizes that he has been stabbed several times and is bleeding everywhere.

He goes to a Red Cross building and cleans his wounds, and when he emerges

Nately's whore is waiting in ambush and tries to stab him again. He punches

her in the jaw, catches her as she passes out and sets her down gently.

Hungry Joe flies him back to Pianosa, where Nately's whore is waiting to

kill him with a steak knife. He eludes her, but she continues to try to

kill him at every opportunity. Yossarian walks around backwards; as word

spreads that he has refused to fly more combat missions, men begin to

approach him, only at night, and to ask him if it's true, and to tell him

they hope he gets away with it. One day Captain Black tells him that

Nately's whore and her kid sister have been flushed out of their apartment

by M.P.'s, and Yossarian, suddenly worried about them, goes to Rome without

permission to try to find them.

He travels with Milo, who is disappointed in him for refusing to fly

more combat missions. Rome has been bombed, and lies in ruins; the

apartment complex where the whores lived is a deserted shambles. Nately

finds the old woman who lived in the complex sobbing; she tells Yossarian

that the only right the soldiers had to chase the girls away was the right

of Catch-22, which says "they have a right to do anything we can't stop

them from doing." Yossarian asks if they had Catch-22 written down, and if

they showed it to her; she says that the law stipulates that they don't

have to show her Catch-22, and that the law that says so is Catch-22. She

says that the her old man is dead. Yossarian goes to Milo and says that he

will fly as many more combat missions as Colonel Cathcart wants if Milo

uses his influence to help him track down the kid sister. Milo agrees, but

becomes distracted when he learns about huge profits to be made in

trafficking illegal tobacco. He slinks away, and Yossarian is left to

wander the dark streets through a horrible night filled with grotesqueries

and loathsome sights; he returns to his apartments late in the night to

find that Aarfy has raped and killed a maid. The M.P.'s burst in. They

apologize to Aarfy for intruding, and arrest Yossarian for being in Rome

without a pass.

Back at Pianosa, Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn offer Yossarian a

deal: they will allow him never to fly another combat mission and will even

send him home, if only he will agree to like them. He will be promoted to

major and all he will have to do is to make speeches in America in support

of the military and the war effort, and in support of the two colonels in

particular. Yossarian realizes it is a hideous deal and a frank betrayal of

the men in his squadron, who will still have to fly the eighty missions,

but he convinces himself to take the deal anyway, and is filled with joy at

the prospect of going home. On his way out of Colonel Cathcart's office,

Nately's whore appears, disguised as a private, and stabs him until he

falls unconscious.

In the hospital, a group of doctors argues over Yossarian while the

fat, angry colonel who interrogated the chaplain interrogates him. Finally

the doctors knock him out and operate on him; when he awakes, he dimly

perceives visits from Aarfy and the chaplain. He tells the chaplain about

his deal with Cathcart and Korn, then assures him that he isn't going to do

it. He vaguely remembers a malignant, almost supernatural man jeering at

him "We've got your pal" shortly after his operation,. He then and he tells

the chaplain that his "pal" must have been one of his friends who was

killed in the war. He realizes that his only friend still living is Hungry

Joe, and but then the chaplain tells him that Hungry Joe has died--in his

sleep, with Huple's cat on his face. Later, Yossarian wakes up to find a

mean-looking man in a hospital gown leering saying "We've got your pal." He

asks who his pal is, and the man tells Yossarian that he'll find out.

Yossarian lunges for him, but the man glides away and vanishes. He flashes

back to the scene of Snowden's death, which he relives in all its agony--

Snowden smiling at him wanly, whimpering "I'm cold," Yossarian reassuring

him and trying to mend the wound until he opens up Snowden's flak suit and

Snowden's insides spill out all over him. He then --and remembers the

secret he had read in those entrails: "The spirit gone, man is garbage."

man is matter, and without the spirit he will rot like garbage.

In the hospital, Yossarian tries to explain to Major Danby why he can

no longer go through with the deal with Cathcart and Korn: he won't sell

himself so short, and he won't betray the memory of his dead friends. He

tells Danby he plans to run away, but Danby tells him there is no hope, and

he agrees. Suddenly the chaplain bursts in with the news that Orr has

washed ashore in Sweden. Yossarian realizes that Orr must have planned his

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