Catch-22

While visiting Rome, Yossarian begins to miss Nurse Duckett. He tries “searching hungrily” (280) for Luciana but cannot find her. Nately asks Yossarian to help him free his beloved sex worker—whom the novel never names, other than calling her “Nately’s whore”—from a group of Army officers who are with her in a hotel room, trying to force her to say “uncle.” The “game” is nonsensical; the men want her to say “uncle,” but only on the condition that she doesn’t want to say it. The woman seems deeply apathetic to their absurd stipulations—just as she is deeply apathetic when having sex with any of them—and her impassivity dismays the men, who want to provoke some reaction out of her. Amid the chaotic, absurd situation, Yossarian and Nately collect the woman and sleep well.

After the experience, the woman begins to fall in love with Nately, just as Nately has fallen in love with her. They lie together in bed until the woman’s little sister rushes into the room. She is also in love with Nately. As Nately begins to fantasize about taking his beloved back to the United States, the woman realizes that Nately does not want her to continue as a sex worker. She becomes angry and attacks Nately. As the argument becomes louder and more violent, people try to calm her down. Nately pleads with the woman, explaining that they can both work for his rich father and that they can raise her little sister as their daughter. Love has turned him into a “romantic idiot” (286). When he complains about the lecherous old neighbor, asking her never to speak with the man, she becomes even more furious. When Nately leaves, however, she begins to miss him. The narrative also states that she “was furious with Yossarian when he punched Nately in the face with all his might and knocked him into the hospital with a broken nose” (286).

The narrative jumps to the time of the nose-breaking: Thanksgiving Day, 1944. Milo has just provided the men with a “fantastically opulent meal” (287) and bottles of cheap whiskey. Yossarian is woken the next day by the sound of machine gun fire. Choking back an exhausted sob, he assumes that Milo is attacking the squadron again, but he realizes the other men are drunkenly shooting the guns for their own entertainment. An infuriated Yossarian “blaze[s] with hatred” (287) and grabs his own gun and goes to stop them. Nately tries to intervene, and Yossarian punches him, breaking Nately’s nose. Nately goes to the hospital. Yossarian feels guilty.

In the hospital, Yossarian and Nately meet the chaplain. The chaplain has told the medical team that he has an invented disease called “Wisconsin shingles” (289). His time in the hospital has given him an opportunity to reflect on virtue and vice, and he feels much better having learned how to sin. A man, wrapped completely in white bandages, is brought into the room. From another bed, Dunbar begins to shout, “He’s back!” He believes this is the same, deceased Soldier in White from the earlier hospital stay. The patients become convinced first that this is the same man, and they join in the chant, “He’s back!” Disturbed, Yossarian almost becomes convinced that this is indeed the same Soldier in White—when suddenly Dunbar turns on a dime and shouts ludicrously that no one is inside the bandages—that the Soldier in White is “hollow inside” (291). Soon, the other patients are screaming along with Dunbar. Nurse Duckett takes Yossarian aside and tells him a rumor: Apparently, a group of doctors has planned to “disappear” (292) Dunbar. When Yossarian attempts to warn his friend, however, Dunbar seems to be gone. 

Chief White Halfoat succeeds in his ambition to die of pneumonia. At the same time, Nately completes the required 70 missions. Yossarian prays to Nately not to volunteer for any more missions, but Nately refuses to return to the United States without the Italian sex worker whom he loves. Yossarian talks to Milo, who talks to Colonel Cathcart. By this time, Milo has been “caught red-handed in the act of plundering his countrymen” (293), and his promises about the syndicate have been exposed as lies. No one really has any great fortune as Milo promised them. Though the men know the truth, they still respect Milo’s business acumen and his “virtuous disdain” (294). Milo tells Cathcart that he feels guilty about not flying any missions, and he asks to be assigned a mission. Cathcart considers the possibility. He worries that another person will need to take over Milo’s black-market operations, in which Cathcart and Korn are now deeply enmeshed.

As Milo explains the intricate details of his operations, however, he subtly convinces Cathcart that he, Milo, is the only person capable of running the operation. Cathcart is keen to preserve his investment. He says that he will find another man to fly Milo’s required missions and that any medals earned during these missions will be given to Milo. Milo mentions that he recently heard that Nately is interested in flying more missions. Cathcart accepts the suggestion of Nately but also adds Yossarian to the list of people to fly Milo’s missions. Milo protests that Yossarian is a “friend” (298) but eventually agrees that Yossarian does not deserve any additional privileges. At the same time, Cathcart raises the number of required missions to 80. When the men are sent on a mission the next day, many people die. Dobbs and Nately are among the 12 dead men. 

Nately’s death takes a heavy toll on Chaplain Tappman. As he forlornly watches the men return from the fateful mission, the military police arrive. They arrest the chaplain on an unspecified charge, dragging him in front of an unnamed colonel who accuses him of the Washington Irving forgery campaign. As evidence, the colonel shows Tappman a letter that was actually written by Yossarian, who signed the chaplain’s name while censoring letters. The chaplain becomes increasingly frustrated by the absurdity of the accusations and insists that he has “no time for these silly questions” (304). The colonel also accuses him of stealing Cathcart’s plum tomatoes and denying that atheism is against the law. The chaplain is accused of a number of crimes but then let loose while his captors devise “how and when” (307) to punish him.

Feeling furious, Tappman tries to speak to Colonel Korn. He angrily confronts Korn about the recent botched mission and Cathcart’s latest move to raise the mission quota to 80. When the chaplain threatens to take the issues to General Dreedle, Korn explains that Peckem has replaced Dreedle as wing commander. Now, Cathcart and Korn can make the men fly as many missions as they want. Anyone who undermines them is sent to the Pacific.

General Peckem cannot enjoy his promotion for very long as his enjoyment immediately begins “falling to pieces” (310). After taking over from General Dreedle, he discovers that Scheisskopf has also been promoted and is now a lieutenant general. As such, Scheisskopf is now Peckem’s commanding officer and in charge of the entire squadron. Scheisskopf plans to immediately organize parades. 

Yossarian refuses to fly any more missions. While undertaking one of Scheisskopf’s parades, he marches backward to ensure that no one is “sneaking up on him from behind” (312). Cathcart and Korn send Yossarian to Rome, taking pity on him because his friends have died recently. When in Rome, Yossarian shares the news of Nately’s death with the sex worker whom Nately loved. She tries to kill Yossarian with a potato peeler, and her younger sister tries to kill him with a knife. Yossarian, nursing his stab wounds, staggers to a Red Cross hospital, but when he exits the hospital, the woman attacks him again. She lies “in ambush” (315) around Rome and attacks Yossarian repeatedly. She even follows him back to the base, so Yossarian and Hungry Joe must fly her back to Rome.

Back on the base, Yossarian continues to march backward. News of his refusal to fly combat missions spreads around the base. People whom Yossarian hardly knows wonder how he hopes to succeed in such open defiance. They approach him secretly and tell him that they hope that he succeeds. The officers offer Yossarian a secret deal: If he agrees to fly missions again, they will assign him only safe missions. Yossarian rejects the deal; he doesn’t want to force another man to take his place on a dangerous mission.

Later, Captain Black delightedly tells Yossarian that the sex worker and her young sister have been “flushed right out into the street” (320) from their apartment in Rome. The military police trashed their apartment and emptied the place out. When Yossarian frantically asks why, Captain Black says it doesn’t make a difference. Yossarian is horrified that they would do that to the “kid sister.”

Yossarian and Milo go to Rome. Milo warns Yossarian that his behavior threatens to undermine the squadron and that he is “jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them” (322). They travel through the ruined city to the apartment building where Nately’s sex worker lived. The building is a mess. Yossarian speaks to one older woman who lived in the building, who explains that the “mean tall soldiers” (323) chased the inhabitants out of the hospital while quoting Catch-22 as their justification.

When Yossarian desperately offers to “fly as many more missions as Colonel Cathcart wanted” (325), Milo agrees to help Yossarian find the woman and her younger sister. However, Milo is quickly distracted by the idea of smuggling tobacco. The potential profit is huge, he realizes, so he abandons Yossarian. After a night spent wandering the bombed-out city alone, Yossarian is shocked by the violence and desperation he witnesses. The rapes, crimes, and violence astonish and disgust him. They seem to never end, and even the police seem like just another violent gang. When he arrives at the squadron’s apartment, he finds that Aarfy attacked the maid. Aarfy raped and killed the woman, but he insists that the police will never arrest “good old Aarfy” (332). Yossarian becomes infuriated that Aarfy thinks he can get away with murder. When the military police burst in, they apologize to Aarfy. Instead, they arrest Yossarian for visiting Rome without the correct paperwork. They drag Yossarian back to the base, where Colonel Korn tells him that “we’re sending you home” (333). 

Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn try to find a way to send Yossarian back to the United States. However, they cannot get around Catch-22. The deal they offer Yossarian means that he will be able to return home, but only if he agrees to “like us. Join us. Be our pal. Say nice things about us here and back in the States” (338). The deal will also promote Yossarian to the rank of major. All he needs to do is support Cathcart and Korn, then pretend the deal never happened.

Yossarian thinks about the deal. He is horrified to realize that the deal is an absolute betrayal of his fellow airmen. They will need to fly 80 missions while he will go home. Nevertheless, he accepts the deal, happy at the thought of going home. Cathcart and Korn tell Yossarian to address them by their nicknames, Chuck and Blackie respectively, and they address him as “Yo-Yo” (339). As he exits the office, feeling good, the sex worker leaps out of the dark, disguised as an enlisted man. She stabs Yossarian, and he is “already unconscious” (340) when Cathcart and Korn chase her away. 

Yossarian lies in the hospital. The doctors argue about his treatment. The same “fat, gruff colonel” (341) who interrogated the chaplain interrogates Yossarian. Eventually, medics operate on Yossarian, and, when he wakes up, he is visited by the chaplain and Aarfy, who he cannot believe is not in jail for murder. He tries to tell the chaplain about the deal offered by Cathcart and Korn, assuring the chaplain that he will reject the deal. The chaplain explains that the official report has incorrectly misidentified Yossarian’s attacker as a “Nazi assassin” (344). Yossarian tries to determine which of his friends are still alive. The only person he can think of is Hungry Joe. However, the chaplain tells Yossarian that Hungry Joe died in his sleep after Huple’s cat sat on his face.

When Yossarian wakes up again in the hospital, he sees an angry man sitting near him. The man tells Yossarian that they’ve got his “pal” (345), but he refuses to divulge the friend’s identity. Yossarian tries to grab the man, but the man slips out of his reach and seems to vanish. Yossarian lies back in his hospital bed and has a flashback to the mission when Snowden died. He experiences every agonizing detail of the mission, remembering Snowden lying with him and whispering about feeling “cold” (346). Yossarian tried to reassure Snowden and tried unsuccessfully to heal his wounds. When Yossarian pulled open Snowden’s jacket, however, Snowden’s insides fell out. Yossarian recalls how he saw a vision in Snowden’s intestines, which told him that “the spirit is gone, man is garbage” (348). Yossarian tried to ponder the meaning of this message.

Still in the hospital, Yossarian tries to tell Major Danby that he has decided to reject the deal with Cathcart and Korn. He is “breaking the agreement” (349) as he cannot bring himself to betray the friends he’s lost during the war. Instead, he plans to desert. Danby tells Yossarian that there is no longer “any hope” (354) for someone in Yossarian’s position as everyone will lie about him and have him court-martialed. Yossarian agrees.

The chaplain rushes into the hospital to tell Yossarian that Orr has been found floating on a raft that washed up on a Swedish beach. Yossarian believes that Orr “went to Sweden deliberately” (355) and orchestrated his desertion. The thought of Orr successfully escaping the war fills Yossarian with a renewed hope. He tells the chaplain to bring him his clothes, and, as he dresses, Yossarian hatches a plan to run away and join Orr in Sweden (Sweden is neutral in the war). He hopes to finally escape the chaos of the war. Danby hands him money to fund his escape, and the chaplain promises that they will meet again. As Yossarian leaves the hospital, the sex worker leaps at him once again from “just outside the door” (358). She tries to stab him, and Yossarian runs away.