Summary — Chapter 17: The Soldier in White
He wondered often how he would ever recognize
. . . the vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would
signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Yossarian has returned to the hospital, where he finds
life (and death) more palatable than in his recurring memories of
being on a bomb run with Snowden dying in the back, whispering,
“I’m cold.” At the hospital, death is orderly and polite, and there
is no inexplicable violence. Dunbar is in the hospital with Yossarian,
and they are both perplexed by the soldier in white, a man completely
covered in plaster bandages. The men in the hospital discuss the
injustice of mortality—some men are killed and some are not, and
some men get sick and some do not, without any pattern or logic.
Some time earlier, Clevinger had tried to explain why there might
be some justice in such illogical deaths, but Yossarian was too
busy keeping track of all the forces trying to kill him to listen.
Later, Yossarian and Hungry Joe collect lists of fatal diseases
that they can claim to have. Doc Daneeka, however, frequently refuses
to ground them even when they claim to have these diseases. The
doctor tells Yossarian that after Yossarian flies his fifty-five
missions he will think about helping Yossarian.
Summary — Chapter 18: The Soldier Who Saw Everything
Twice
The first time Yossarian ever goes to the hospital, he
is still a private. He feigns an abdominal pain, but when the doctors
decide he has been cured, he pretends to have the mysterious ailment
of another soldier in the ward who says he “sees everything twice.”
He spends Thanksgiving in the hospital and vows to spend all future
Thanksgivings there, but he breaks that oath when he spends the
next Thanksgiving in bed with Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife, arguing about
God. After Yossarian claims he is cured of seeing everything twice,
he is asked to pretend to be a dying soldier whose mother, father,
and brother have come to visit him. The family, which has traveled
to visit their family member, does not know that he died that morning.
The doctors bandage Yossarian, who pretends to be the dying soldier.
The soldier’s father asks Yossarian to tell God that it is not right
for men to die so young.
Summary — Chapter 19: Colonel Cathcart
Haven’t you got anything humorous that
stays away from . . . God? I’d like to keep away from the subject
of religion altogether if we can.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The ambitious Colonel Cathcart browbeats the chaplain,
demanding a prayer before each bombing run, an idea he takes from
the -Saturday Evening Post. He then abandons the
idea after the chaplain suggests that God might punish them for
not including the enlisted men. The chaplain timidly mentions that
some of the men have complained about Colonel Cathcart’s habit of
raising the number of missions required every few weeks, but Colonel
Cathcart ignores him.
Summary — Chapter 20: Corporal Whitcomb
On his way home, the chaplain meets Colonel Korn, Colonel
Cathcart’s wily, cynical sidekick. Colonel Korn mocks Colonel Cathcart in
front of the chaplain and is highly suspicious of a plum tomato that
Colonel Cathcart offered the chaplain. At his tent in the woods, the
chaplain encounters the hostile Corporal Whitcomb, his atheistic
assistant, who resents him deeply for holding back his career. Corporal
Whitcomb tells the chaplain that a C.I.D. man
suspects the chaplain of signing Washington Irving’s name to official
papers and of stealing plum tomatoes. The poor chaplain is very
unhappy, because he feels helpless to improve anyone’s life.
Summary — Chapter 21: General Dreedle
Colonel Cathcart has become preoccupied with Yossarian’s
behavior—particularly his complaints about the number of required
missions and the fact that he appeared naked at his medal ceremony shortly
after Snowden’s death. Yossarian had refused to wear clothes to
the ceremony because Snowden, dying in the back of the plane, had
bled all over him, and Yossarian never wanted to wear a uniform
again. Yossarian is also responsible for a moaning epidemic at the
briefing before the Avignon mission during which Snowden was killed;
he started moaning because the mission’s dangers meant that he might
never again sleep with a beautiful woman.
Colonel Cathcart wishes he knew how to solve the problem posed
by Yossarian’s mischief, for this would impress General Dreedle,
Cathcart’s commanding officer. General Dreedle, however, does not
care what his men do, as long as they remain alive in reliable military
quantities. He travels everywhere with a buxom nurse and worries
mostly about Colonel Moodus, his son-in-law, whom he despises and
thus occasionally asks Chief White Halfoat to punch in the nose.
The narrator relates that Colonel Korn once tried to undercut Colonel
Cathcart by giving a flamboyant briefing to impress General Dreedle;
General Dreedle, unimpressed, told Colonel Cathcart that Colonel
Korn made him sick.
