Summary — Chapter 1: The Texan
Not wanting to face the violence of World War II,
Yossarian, an American soldier, has gone to an Italian military
hospital claiming to have a pain in his liver. The doctors seem
unable to prove that he is well, so they let him stay, though they
are perplexed that his condition is neither improving nor worsening.
The hospital patients are required to censor letters traveling between
the soldiers and their loved ones at home. Yossarian plays games
with the letters, deleting words according to his own arbitrary
rules and affixing his signature as “Washington Irving.” He shares
the hospital ward with his friend Dunbar, a bandaged, immobile man
called “the soldier in white,” and a pair of nurses who appear to
hate Yossarian.
An affable Texan is admitted to the ward one day, and
the Texan tries to convince the patients that “decent folk” deserve
extra votes. The Texan’s patriotism deeply annoys the other patients.
Meanwhile, a chaplain comes to see Yossarian, who enjoys the chaplain’s company.
But within ten days of the Texan’s arrival at the hospital, almost
everyone, including Yossarian, flees the ward out of annoyance with
the Texan, recovering from his or her ailments and returning to
active duty.
Summary — Chapter 2: Clevinger
When he leaves the hospital, Yossarian feels that he is
the only one concerned about the senseless war in which millions
of young men are bombing each other. He remembers arguing about
the nature of the war with an officer in his group named Clevinger.
Yossarian had claimed that everyone was trying to kill him, while
Clevinger argued that no one was trying to kill Yossarian personally.
Yossarian had rejected Clevinger’s arguments about countries and
honor; for Yossarian, the salient fact was that people kept shooting
at him.
Yossarian sees his roommate, Orr, and finds out that Clevinger
is still missing. He remembers the last time he and Clevinger called each
other crazy, during a night at the officers’ club when Yossarian announced
to everyone present that he was superhuman because no one had managed
to kill him yet. Yossarian is suspicious of everyone when he gets
out of the hospital. He has a delicious meal in Milo’s gourmet mess
hall, then talks to Doc Daneeka, who enrages Yossarian by telling
him that Colonel Cathcart has raised the number of missions required
before a soldier can be discharged from forty-five to fifty. At
the time of this change, Yossarian had flown forty-four missions.
Summary — Chapter 3: Havermeyer
Orr tells Yossarian a nonsensical story about how he liked
to stuff crab apples in his cheeks when he was younger. Yossarian
briefly remembers an episode in Rome during which a whore beat Orr
over the head with her shoe. Yossarian reflects on Orr’s size; he
is even smaller than Huple, a young boy who lives near Hungry Joe’s
tent. Hungry Joe has nightmares whenever he is not scheduled to
fly a mission the next day, and his screaming keeps the whole camp awake.
Hungry Joe’s tent is near a road where the men sometimes pick up
girls and take them out to the tall grass across the road from an
open-air movie theater.
A U.S.O. (United Service Organizations)
troupe that visited the theater that afternoon has been sent by
an ambitious general named P. P. Peckem, who hopes to take over
the command of Yossarian’s unit from General Dreedle. General Peckem’s
troubleshooter, Colonel Cargill, used to be a marketing executive
paid by Wall Street firms to fail at marketing so that they could
establish tax losses. Cargill does much the same thing now as a
colonel: he fails most notably at bringing enthusiasm to the men,
some of whom have finished their fifty missions and anxiously hope
their orders to return home arrive before Colonel Cathcart raises
the number of missions again.
