STUDYWORLD STUDYNOTES

Catch-22

Comprehensive Summary and Review of Chapters 36-42

Summary:

Chaplain Tappman is deeply moved by the news of the mid-air collision which killed twelve men. In particular he hopes that Yossarian, Nately, Hungry Joe and his other friends are not on the casualty list.

At the field, he is relieved to see Yossarian but he soon realizes that Nately is dead. Just at that moment, the Chaplain is surrounded by several men who identify themselves as being government officials and claim that they have to ask him some question. They drive him away and the Chaplain begins to feel like a criminal. When he asks for an explanation, he is told to keep still and just answer their questions.

The Chaplain is taken to a basement at Group Headquarters for an interrogation. The first thing that he is expected to do is write his name . When he complies, he is called a liar and shown the evidence which was the basis of the Chaplain's arrest. It was a photostatic copy of a piece of a letter which bore his signature. The Chaplain immediately realizes that is was Yossarian who wrote the letter and forged his name, but he pretends not to know who it is.

After several more questions, the Chaplain is found guilty. When he questions them as to what they find him guilty of, he gets a convoluting response and then he is told that he is free to go.

When the Chaplain returns to the base, he confronts Colonel Korn about the number of missions that he expects the men to fly. The Colonel responds to him with sarcasm and contempt and tells him that he will think about it.

The Chaplain attempts to bring the topic of the number of missions that the men are expected to fly to the attention of the General who now is General Peckem. When he reaches the general's office, he witnesses a scene of frenzy as Colonel Scheisskopf has been promoted to general. It appears that General Peckem had written a memo a while back suggesting that Combat Operations should be transferred to Special Services in the hope of getting a promotion for himself. When he didn't receive a response, he forgot about this memorandum and put Scheisskopf in charge of Special Services. When the memo received attention, his scheme backfired. Scheisskopf was promoted and General Peckem now has to take orders from General Scheisskopf.

Yossarian reaches a point of desperation and refuses to fly any more missions. He is sent to Rome for a rest and meets Nately's whore. When he tells her that Nately is dead, she takes out her fury on Yossarian and almost kills him. The scene between and the whore becomes bizarre as she doesn't seem to understand that Yossarian had nothing to do with Nately's death.

Yossarian leaves for Rome without an official pass. He convinces Milo to help him find the whore's kid sister. When they reach Rome, they find the city in ruins and no trace of anybody that they know. Even Milo loses interest and leaves Yossarian to do his own thing.

When Yossarian returns to to officer's club, he finds Aarfy who sitting in the lounge smoking his cigar. He tells Yossarian that he raped the maid and then killed her by throwing out the window. Yossarian is shocked and tries to explain to Aarfy that he will put into jail. When the men hear the police siren, Aarfy arrogant manner seems to leave him, but ironically the police have not arrived because a murder has been committed. They came to arrest Yossarian because he was in Rome without a pass. He is flown back to the base and brought to Colonel Cathcart's office.

Both Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn are in the office and after a lengthy conversation of trying to convince Yossarian to fly they offer him a deal. They tell him that he will be able to go home without fulfilling the eighty missions if he will promise to support them and say good things about them. Even though Yossarian doesn't want to be their "pal" and feels that he is betraying the rest of the men, he decides to accept their offer. As he leaves the office, he is assaulted by what appears to be a private but turns out to be Nately's whore in disguise.

Yossarian is badly wounded and has to be taken to the hospital. There he finds out that Hungry Joe has been killed. After hearing this news, and reflecting upon as well as reliving the scene of Snowden's death, Yosaarian reconsiders his deal with the Colonels and decides to desert instead. As he leaves the hospital, he is again assaulted by Nately's whore but this time he is able to get away and her "knife misses him by inches".

Review:

The Chaplain's interrogation portrays bureaucratic injustice and how comments taken out of context can unjustly injure an innocent person.

General Scheisskopf's promotion shows that, it is not merit-based, as would be expected but instead on unimportant paperwork.

In the chapter where Yossarian is almost killed by Nately's whore, Yossarian shows a compassionate side as he tries to comfort her instead of running away from her.

The arrest of Yossarian in Rome shows a world having turned upside down. Aarfy who committed a murder is not arrested, whereas Yassorian who is in Rome without a pass, is considered a criminal.

Snowden's death is a pivot point for the entire book. Although the full details of that scene don't come until the end of the novel, Chapter 41, chronologically speaking, it is the point in Yossarian's life when the war becomes real to him, and he begins to focus exclusively on getting out of missions and preserving his own life.

It is totally unclear why Nately's whore continuously tries to kill Yossarian and blames him for Nately's death.

Yossarian's act of desertion is proof positive that Yossarin has finally won his inner struggle and regained his self respect as well as his courage. He no longer fears the bureaucratic "Catch-22".