Important Quotations Explained
1. There
was only one catch and that was Catch-22,
which specified that a concern for one’s own 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 was sane he would have 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. “That’s some catch, that Catch-22,”
he observed. “It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.
This passage from Chapter 5 marks
the novel’s first mention of the paradoxical law called “Catch-22.”
Over the course of the novel, Catch-22 is
described in a number of different ways that can be applied to a
number of different aspects of wartime life; here, however, Catch-22 affects
Yossarian most specifically. Catch-22 is alarmingly
persuasive; even Yossarian accepts what seems to be its logical
infallibility. But Catch-22 is an abstract
thing; we find out later that Yossarian believes that Catch-22 does
not really exist. It is a trap made up of words, and words are faulty
things, often misrepresenting reality. What is so upsetting about
the way Catch-22 is applied throughout the
novel is that real men are sent into real peril based on a few unreal
and unreliable words.
2. These
three men who hated [Clevinger] spoke his language and wore his
uniform, but he saw their loveless faces set immutably into cramped,
mean lines of hostility and understood instantly that nowhere in
the world, not in all the fascist tanks or planes or submarines,
not in the bunker behind the machine guns or mortars or behind the
blowing flame throwers, not even among all the expert gunners of
the crack Hermann Goering Antiaircraft Division or among the grisly
connivers in all the beer halls in Munich and everywhere else, were
there men who hated him more.
In this passage from Chapter 8,
Clevinger has just faced a hearing in which Lieutenant Scheisskopf
and two other officers convict him of an infraction that he did
not commit and sentence him to punishment duty. Their hatred of
him forces him to come to terms with one of the central ironies
of Catch-22: the force that drives men from opposing
armies to shoot at and kill each other has nothing to do with personal
hatred. It seems strange to Clevinger that men who want to kill
him do not hate him, whereas men who are ostensibly his allies hate
him deeply.
3. One
of the things [Yossarian] wanted to start screaming about was the
surgeon’s knife that was almost certain to be waiting for him and
everyone else who lived long enough to die. He wondered often how
he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch,
sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of
memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable
end.
This quote from Chapter 17 demonstrates
that the war, in confronting Yossarian daily with the possibility
of his own death, has not hardened him to fear; instead, it has
made him much more aware of the value and fragility of life. He
cannot stop thinking about all the ways in which he could possibly
die—in addition to antiaircraft fire, there are plenty of diseases
that could kill him. In this passage, Yossarian also dwells on the
inevitability of death. He feels trapped in the army; Catch-22 prevents
him from escaping it. But the fact that he must someday die is an
even greater and more inescapable trap, for even if he manages to
wiggle out of the prison of the army, he will still have to face
his death eventually.
4. “Haven’t
you got anything humorous that stays away from waters and valleys
and God? I’d like to keep away from the subject of religion altogether
if we can.”
The chaplain was apologetic. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid
all the prayers I know are rather somber in tone
and make at least some passing reference to God.”
“Then let’s get some new ones.”
In this conversation in Chapter 19,
Colonel Cathcart and the chaplain discuss the possibility of saying
a group prayer before each mission. Cathcart wants to start saying
the prayers because he thinks it will get him mentioned in the Saturday
Evening Post; later, he abandons this idea when he hears
that the enlisted men will have to be included along with the officers.
By asking to exclude religion from the prayers, Cathcart shows that
he is interested in religion only as a tool for his own advancement.
Actual faith in God has nothing to do with the chaplain’s purpose—at
least as far as Cathcart is concerned. Throughout Catch-22, the
chaplain struggles to maintain his faith, and he is confronted again
and again by men who want to use religion as a tool without understanding
the value of real faith.
5. Yossarian
was cold, too, and shivering uncontrollably. He felt goose pimples
clacking all over him as he gazed down despondently at the grim
secret Snowden had spilled all over the messy floor. It was easy
to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s
secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and
he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. That
was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.
This passage occurs in Chapter 41 during
the final description of Snowden’s death, in which Snowden’s entrails
spill out of his stomach and onto the floor. Snowden’s death causes
Yossarian to realize that, without the spirit, man is nothing but
matter. Yossarian feels cold, which allows him to identify with
Snowden; in Snowden’s entrails, Yossarian can see the prediction
of his own death. The final sentence of this passage, “Ripeness
is all,” contains a small message of hope, implying that man can,
for a brief period, be truly alive. It is this kind of ripeness
that Yossarian clings to by trying to keep himself alive and, eventually,
by deserting the army.
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