Summary Major Major Major Major is an officer whose last name is Major. His first and second names are Major. He holds the rank of major. Major enters the Army as a private, but a computer promotes him to the fourth officer grade of major within four days. Major has […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 9-10Summary and Analysis Chapters 7-8
Summary When Yossarian goes on bombing missions, his pilot ordinarily is McWatt. At other times, McWatt enjoys flying low over the squadron, buzzing Yossarian’s tent as well as the bathers at the beach. McWatt seems reasonably sane but unusually happy with the war. He whistles “bouncy show tunes constantly” and […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 7-8Summary and Analysis Chapters 5-6
Summary Doc Daneeka shares a tent with Chief White Halfoat, a Native American (“half-blooded Creek”) from Oklahoma who never learned to read or write because his family was always on the move. Wherever the family located, oil was discovered; as the petroleum companies moved in, the Halfoats were forced out. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 5-6Summary and Analysis Chapters 3-4
Summary Yossarian shares a tent with an airman named Orr and a mysterious “dead man.” Orr is an odd little fellow, a mechanical wizard who is always fixing up the tent. Currently, he is working on a faucet that will feed gasoline into a stove that he has built in […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 3-4Summary and Analysis Chapters 1-2
Summary As the novel opens, its protagonist, Captain John Yossarian, is in the squadron hospital, on the island of Pianosa, during the latter stages of World War II. Yossarian has a temperature of 101 degrees and complains of liver pains. The doctors suspect that he suffers from jaundice, but because […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapters 1-2Character List
Yossarian The novel’s protagonist is a bombardier, a burgeoning pacifist, and an avowed adversary of Catch-22. Chaplain Tappman One of the most decent characters in the novel, and consistently a friend to Yossarian, the chaplain grows from a timid, ineffectual fool to a bold and assertive force for reason and […]
Read more Character ListAbout Catch-22
Historical Background The United States of America entered World War II in December 1941, immediately after a Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. naval base on the south coast of Oahu in Hawaii, near Honolulu. Most of the action in Catch-22 is based on Joseph Heller’s experiences as […]
Read more About Catch-22Book Summary
Captain John Yossarian, the novel’s protagonist, is a bombardier in the 256th Squadron of the Army Air Forces during World War II, stationed on Pianosa, a fictionalized island in the Mediterranean between mainland Italy and Corsica. The squadron’s assignment is to bomb enemy positions in Italy and eastern France. It […]
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