Catch-22

***Catch-22*** is a satirical  war novel by American author Joseph Heller. He began writing it in 1953; the novel was first published in 1961. Often cited as one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century, it uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, describing events from the points of view of different characters. The separate storylines are out of sequence so the timeline develops along with the plot.

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of antihero Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th US Army Air Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy, though it also covers episodes from basic training at Lowery Field in Colorado and Air Corps training in Santa Ana, CA. The novel examines the absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of Yossarian and his cohorts, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

In 1994 Heller published a sequel, *Closing Time*.

## Synopsis

The development of the novel can be split into segments. The first (chapters 1–11) broadly follows the story fragmented between characters, but in a single chronological time in 1944. The second (chapters 12–20) flashes back to focus primarily on the "Great Big Siege of Bologna" before once again jumping to the chronological present of 1944 in the third part (chapter 21–25). The fourth (chapters 26–28) flashes back to the origins and growth of Milo's syndicate, with the fifth part (chapter 28–32) returning again to the narrative present and maintaining the tone of the previous four. The sixth and final part (chapter 32 and on) remains in the story's present, but takes a much darker turn and spends the remaining chapters focusing on the serious and brutal nature of war and life in general.
Previously the reader had been cushioned from experiencing the full horror of events, but in the final section, the events are laid bare. The horror begins with the attack on the undefended Italian mountain village, with the following chapters involving despair (Doc Daneeka and the Chaplain), disappearance in combat (Orr and Clevinger), disappearance caused by the army (Dunbar) or death of most of Yossarian's friends (Nately, McWatt, Kid Sampson, Dobbs, Chief White Halfoat and Hungry Joe), culminating in the horrors of Chapter 39, in particular the rape and murder of the innocent young woman, Michaela. In Chapter 41 the full details of the gruesome death of Snowden are finally revealed.

Nevertheless, the novel ends on an upbeat note with Yossarian learning of Orr's miraculous escape to Sweden and Yossarian's pledge to follow him there.

## Style

Many events in the book are repeatedly described from differing points of view, so the reader learns more about each event from each iteration, with the new information often completing a joke, the setup of which was told several chapters previously. The narrative's events are out of sequence, but events are referred to as if the reader is already familiar with them so that the reader must ultimately piece together a timeline of events. Specific words, phrases, and questions are also repeated frequently, generally to comic effect.

Much of Heller's prose in *Catch-22* is circular and repetitive, exemplifying in its form the structure of a *Catch-22*. Circular reasoning is widely used by some characters to justify their actions and opinions. Heller revels in paradox, for example: "The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him", and "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with." This atmosphere of apparently logical irrationality pervades the book.

While a few characters are most prominent, especially Yossarian and the Chaplain, the majority of named characters are described in detail with fleshed out or multidimensional personas to the extent that there are few if any "minor characters". There are no traditional heroes in the novel, reflecting the underlying commentary that war has no heroes, only victims.

Although its non-chronological structure may at first seem random, *Catch-22* is highly structured. It is founded on a structure of free association; ideas run into one another through seemingly random connections. For example, Chapter 1, titled "The Texan", ends with "everybody but the CID man, who had caught a cold from the fighter captain and come down with pneumonia." Chapter 2, titled "Clevinger", begins with "In a way, the CID man was pretty lucky because outside the hospital the war was still going on." The CID man connects the two chapters like a free association bridge and eventually Chapter 2 flows from the CID man to Clevinger through more free association links.

## Themes

### Paradox

Yossarian comes to fear his commanding officers more than he fears the Germans attempting to shoot him down and he feels that "they" are "out to get him". Chief among the reasons Yossarian fears his commanders more than the enemy is that as he flies more missions, Colonel Cathcart increases the number of required combat missions before a soldier may return home; he reaches the magic number only to have it retroactively raised. He comes to despair of ever getting home and is greatly relieved when he is sent to the hospital for a condition that is almost jaundice. In Yossarian's words:

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which *side* he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.
### Tragedy and farce

Much of the farce in the novel is fueled by intentional and unintentional miscommunication, occasionally leading to tragic consequences. For example, Cathcart's desire to become a general is thwarted by ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen sabotaging his correspondence. Major Major's and Yossarian's mis-censoring of correspondence is blamed on the Chaplain, who is threatened with imprisonment as a result.

### Theodicy

Yossarian questions the idea that God is all-powerful, all-good, and all knowing. The narrator seems to believe that God, if not evil, is incompetent. In chapter 18, Yossarian states that he "believes in the God he doesn't believe in", this version of God having created Hitler, the war, and all the failures of human life and society, as exemplified in the following passage:

> "And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways", Yossarian continued, hurtling over her objections. "There's nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about—a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain? … Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! [to warn us of danger] Why couldn't He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person's forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn't He? … What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. …"
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### Anti-capitalism

While the military's enemies are Germans, none appears in the story as an enemy combatant. This ironic situation is epitomized in the single appearance of German personnel in the novel, who act as pilots employed by the squadron's Mess Officer, Milo Minderbinder, to bomb the American encampment on Pianosa. This predicament indicates a tension between traditional motives for violence and the modern economic machine, which seems to generate violence simply as another means to profit, quite independent of geographical or ideological constraints which creates a military–industrial complex. Heller emphasizes the danger of profit-seeking by portraying Milo without "evil intent." Milo's actions are portrayed as the result of greed, not malice.

## Concept

Strictly speaking, a "Catch-22" is "a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule." For example, losing something is typically a conventional problem; to solve it, one looks for the lost item until one finds it. But if the thing lost is one's glasses, one cannot see to look for them — a Catch-22. The term "Catch-22" is also used more broadly to mean a tricky problem or a no-win or absurd situation.

In the book, Catch-22 is a military rule typifying bureaucratic operation and reasoning. The rule is not stated in a general form, but the principal example in the book fits the definition above: If one is crazy, one does not have to fly missions; and one must be crazy to fly. But one has to apply to be excused, and applying demonstrates that one is not crazy. As a result, one must continue flying, either not applying to be excused, or applying and being refused. The narrator explains:

> There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's 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 were 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. (p. 56, ch. 5)
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Other forms of Catch-22 are invoked throughout the novel to justify various bureaucratic actions. At one point, victims of harassment by military police quote the MPs' explanation of one of Catch-22's provisions: "Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating." Another character explains: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 does not actually exist, but because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, because it does not exist, there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. The combination of force with specious and spurious legalistic justification is one of the book's primary motifs.

The motif of bureaucratic absurdity is further explored in 1994's *Closing Time*, Heller's sequel to *Catch-22*. This darker, slower-paced, apocalyptic novel explores the pre- and post-war lives of some of the major characters in *Catch-22*, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Yossarian and tail gunner Sammy Singer.

## Orr

**Orr** is a fictional character in the classic novel *Catch-22* by Joseph Heller. Orr is a World War II bomber pilot who shares a tent with his good friend, the protagonist of the novel, Yossarian. Described as "a warm-hearted, simple-minded gnome," Orr is generally considered crazy. His most notable feature is repeatedly being shot down over water, but, until his final flight, always managing to survive along with his entire crew. On his final flight, perhaps two-thirds of the way through the novel, he is again shot down into the Mediterranean, and is lost at sea. Only in the last ten pages of the novel does Heller reveal that Orr's crashes were part of an elaborate (and successful) plot to escape the war.

Orr is the only airman of the group to successfully get away by the end of the novel.

### Relationships and conflicts

Orr is good friends with Yossarian and enjoys winding him up with his stories of crabapples and horse-chestnuts or about the prostitute that kept hitting him over the head. He tries to encourage Yossarian to fly with him, intimating that it would be to his advantage, but Yossarian refuses as he is scared of being shot down. It is not until Orr escapes to Sweden that Yossarian realises that Orr was trying to offer him an escape out of the war with him.

> "Oh, they're there, all right," Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby's eyes after Yossarian's fist fight with Appleby in the officers' club, "although he probably doesn’t even know it. That's why he can’t see things as they really are."
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> "How come he doesn't know it?’ inquired Yossarian.
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> "Because he’s got flies in his eyes," Orr explained with exaggerated patience. "How can he see he's got flies in his eyes if he's got flies in his eyes?"
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Everyone in the squadron presumes that Orr is a simpleton, as evidenced by his optimism, despite the increasing numbers of missions, and the fact that when he crashes his plane into the sea, M&M Enterprises has stolen the CO2 cylinders from the life jackets: "Orr hasn’t got brains enough to be unhappy." Yossarian says. However, he is eventually revealed to have had the clearest view of the absurdities of their situation through his carefully planned escape to Sweden. Although he has been shot down more times than anyone else in the unit (17), he continues to fly and does not appear afraid of the missions, and he is therefore assumed to be crazy. They do not know that this is part of his plan to escape the war.

Doc Daneeka uses Orr as an example, when explaining the grounding of the insane and “Catch-22”. Orr is insane for not requesting to be grounded, even though he is shot down every mission he flies. If he did request to be grounded he would be considered sane for realising the risks of continuing to fly. The “Catch-22” is that you can only be grounded if you are insane. But you must request it, and by requesting it you are considered sane.

### Crab apples

Orr has a bucktoothed smile and frequently puts crabapples or horse chestnuts in his cheeks and rubber balls in his hands. He constantly teases Yossarian asking him if he wants to know why, to which Yossarian invariably says "yes". Orr never gives any straightforward explanation for this other than he wants big cheeks and to detract from the peculiarity of this he keeps rubber balls in his hands. As he explains the latter, "Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in my cheeks, I'd just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it's pretty tough to make people understand you when you're talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks."

This oddity is analogous to other absurd and ambiguous conversations in the novel, which are circular and end up having little or no significance. He uses this behaviour to draw Yossarian into circular arguments that never seem to be resolved and serve to only frustrate Yossarian (which amuses Orr who generally chortles at his cleverness).

### Incident with prostitute

An incident with an unnamed prostitute in a hotel in Rome is one of the most puzzling and elusive events in the novel, and it is never entirely explained to the reader.

The whole apartment watches as the prostitute jumps up and down naked, and hits a giggling, equally naked Orr on the head with her heeled shoes. Each time she jumps and hit him, Orr giggles louder, making her even more angry. She then would jump even higher and hit him harder, causing him to giggle even more. The vicious cycle ends after fifteen to twenty minutes when she knocks him out cold with a good whack to his head, leaving him with a concussion "that kept him out of combat for only twelve days."

Yossarian, on learning that Orr has escaped to Sweden, in the concluding pages of the novel, decides that she was hired by Orr as part of a plan to receive leave. Yossarian realises that the prostitute was jumping on Orr's head "because he was paying her to, that's why! But she wouldn't hit him hard enough, so he had to row to Sweden." The incident was simply another of Orr's plans to escape from the war.

### Epiphany

In a conversation with Yossarian in their tent, Orr tries to hint at his reasons for being so obscure, why the prostitute was hitting him over the head and why Yossarian should fly with Orr. In the next mission Orr is lost at sea, and Yossarian believes that he is dead. Only later does Yossarian realize it was all part of a grand plan to escape the war to Sweden, which Orr was trying to encourage Yossarian to be a part of.

### Plane crashes

Orr (like Yossarian) has a firm grasp of his situation in the war effort. As the story unfolds between harrowing war scenes and more personable ones such as Orr and Yossarian meeting prostitutes in Rome, Orr more and more enunciates his guile and clever techniques to move toward his freedom from war. At first, his frequent airplane crashes seems to hint toward a clumsy, foolish pilot who has little knack and knowledge for his craft. In the concluding chapters, Orr purposefully crashes for two reasons: to throw off all of the commanding officers who would believe he met his demise and to learn where and how to crash in order to be close to Sweden. The generals, colonels, and other commanding officers in the higher echelons constantly and consistently appear to be vain and care only about their own careers. To expect that Orr could survive a crash would certainly fall out of their range of focus and would not create much of an uproar, especially because of Orr's unfailing "ability" to crash. It is also paradoxical, in the classic way of the novel, that Orr has to crash his plane repeatedly - practising for the time that he will crash his plane.

Throughout the last ten chapters Yossarian along with Orr thinks diligently about crashing near a neutral country such as Switzerland or Sweden to be interned there for the rest of the war. Since heading directly toward one of the two countries would give the appearance of fleeing similar to AWOL, a more surreptitious and clandestine indirect path would work better. By practicing to crash, Orr learned how to do so in a fashion where he could escape as narrowly as possible to hint at death; those in higher power would simply wave it off and move on with their bureaucratic motives, leaving Orr to his especially spacious freedom. He used the crashes as practice for ocean survival techniques, as is evident in his self-titled chapter in which he and his crew members are in a life raft. He learns not only the physical but mental aspects as well, keeping himself jocular and humorous while on the seas to keep from getting bored or going mad. The news of this escape eventually reaches Yossarian in Italy, causing him to undergo a revelation as to Orr's motives about his actions and re-energizes him to keep on "fighting the system". It is only then that he realises that Orr's requests that Yossarian should fly with him was actually a scheme for them both to escape to Sweden.