A Cast of Characters -- Chapters 4-11

Catch-22 has continued to be consistently funny, insightful, and engaging throughout the first quarter of the novel.  It is becoming increasingly clearer that the frequent contradictions that give the novel much of its humor is commentary on the contradictions and general insanity of war itself.  We have been introduced to many characters, from enlisted men to officers who still fly combat missions to bureaucratic higher-ups who catch much of the book's criticism.  Though this is not true of all of the book's chapters, every chapter from 4 through 11 is named after a different character who plays a relatively prominent role.  I'm going to briefly talk about each of these characters, in addition to Yossarian, the main character.

Yossarian

Yossarian is the main character of Catch-22.  He is deeply disillusioned by the war, and does all that he can to avoid combat.  He spends weeks in the hospital claiming to have liver pain, and only exits when an overly patriotic Texan comes into the ward and annoys all of the patients out.  He pesters Doc Daneeka to "ground" him, or write him a doctor's note declaring him insane and unfit to fly.  We see much of the book trough Yossarian's eyes, and I, at least, am rooting for him in his crusade to survive a war that, as he sees it, requires death but not necessarily his own death.

Doc Daneeka

Doc Daneeka is the squadron's somewhat incompetent doctor.  He ran a corrupt practice back in the United States, and was forced into the military after he was discovered.  He lives in constant fear of being transferred to the Pacific, and because of that refuses to do anything that has a chance of annoying his superiors.  This includes grounding Yossarian.  The opposite of a prototypical doctor, he is portrayed as crooked and selfish.

Chief White Halfoat

Chief White Halfoat is a very interesting character.  He and his (Native American) family were chased around the American west, unable to settle down because wherever they tried to live, oil was found.  Soon, prospectors started following the Halfoats around and digging wherever they stopped.  Chief White Halfoat has decided that he wants to die of pneumonia, because it just sees like a nice way to die to him.  This is probably a commentary of how soldiers prefer to die of anything but combat, but Halfoat's quest to die of pneumonia is one of my favorite parts of this book so far, just for its humor.

Hungry Joe

Hungry Joe is the most prolific fighter pilot in the squadron.  He was the first and only to attain the number of missions required in order to be discharged, but the number was raised before he could be sent home.  After this happened a few times, he tired of writing letters home telling everybody that he was coming, and now simply waits for the mission requirement to be raised once he attains it.  Unless he is flying a mission the next day, Hungry Joe screams all night with his nightmares.  His inability to be sent home is probably a criticism of the bureaucracy in the military; his night terrors show the flimsy psychological state of soldiers.

McWatt

McWatt is Yossarian's pilot and one of his close friends.  Like every other character, Yossarian thinks that he is crazy, but McWatt's craziness comes from the fact that he is able to remain sane.  Because of his sanity there is little to note about McWatt; he is most likely present to show that during war, sanity itself is a form of insanity.  This is another catch-22 that the novel presents; it is no longer possible to be sane during war.

Lieutenant Scheisskopf

Lieutenant Scheisskopf, whose name no doubt is a favorite for German-speaking readers of this book, is not on the island of Pianosa with most of the other characters. He was Yossarian's training officer when he was still an air cadet, and this chapter mostly focuses on Yossarian's experiences while undergoing training.  Scheisskopf was interested less in training, however, and more in the parades that each squadron would compete against each other in on a weekly basis.  He obsessed over the parades, and his cadets eventually became so adept at them that the parades ended and Scheisskopf was promoted to First Lieutenant.  This is an example of how promotions in the military are often not based on merit, but instead on areas wholly unimportant to the training and leading of men.

Major Major Major Major

Major Major Major Major (or just Major Major) is the commander of Yossarian's squadron.  His father, whose last name was Major, named him Major Major Major, and his ascent to the rank of Major was entirely because of that name, as he was "promoted by an I.B.M. machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's."  For a while, Major Major sat in his office and signed his name to papers all day, but he soon discovered that he would get the same papers later and have to sign them again.  When he tried signing the name "Washington Irving" to the papers instead, they never returned, and so he resolved to never sign his real name to a paper again.  His ineptitude at his role is another example of the lack of merit promotion.  

Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen

Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen seems to have the system figured out.  Once a private, first class (P.F.C), he went AWOL and as punishment was stripped of his rank and was forced to dig and then fill in holes.  Once he finished his sentence, he went AWOL again and was again  forced to dig and fill in holes.  He has decided that he will do this until the war is over.  This seems to be a commentary on how many military positions are as pointless as digging and filling in a hole, and Wintergreen talks about digging holes like soldiers talk about combat: "'It's a matter of duty,' he observed, 'and we each have our own to perform. My duty is to keep digging these holes."

Captain Black

Captain Black considers himself the most intelligent person on Pianosa, so he is enraged when Major Major becomes the squadron commander instead of him.  In order to punish Major Major, Captain Black starts the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, which involved having every soldier sign a loyalty oath, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and/or sing the Star-Spangled Banner in order to be able to do anything from eat to get in their planes to fly off to combat.  He refuses to allow Major Major to sign an oath, then criticizes him for not signing the oath.  This chapter appears to mock the level of patriotism that Americans in general and soldiers in particular are expected to display.

Catch-22 is, through the first 89 pages, one of my favorite books ever.  Though I know that it is still early, I would call it a must-read for fans of absurd or offbeat yet meaningful humor, and it shows that it is possible to illustrate the issues of war without being darkly realistic.