American Literature books summary

Appleby tried to turn Yossarian in for not taking his Atabrine tablets, but

the only time he was allowed to go into Major Major's office was when Major

Major wasn't there. Yossarian remembers Mudd, a soldier who died

immediately after arriving at the camp, and whose belongings are still in

Yossarian's tent. The belongings are contaminated with death in the same

way that the whole camp was contaminated before the deadly mission of the

Great Big Siege of Bologna, for which Colonel Cathcart bravely volunteered

his men. During this time even sick men were not allowed to be grounded by

doctors. Dr. Stubbs is overwhelmed with cynicism, and asks what the point

is of saving lives when everyone dies anyway. Dunbar says that the point is

to live as long as you can and forget about the fact that you will

eventually die.

Chapters 11-16

Captain Black is pleased to hear the news that Colonel Cathcart has

volunteered the men for the lethally dangerous mission of bombing Bologna.

Captain Black thinks the men are bastards, and gloats about their

terrifying, violent task. Captain Black is extremely ambitious, and hoped

to be promoted to squadron commander; when Major Major was picked over him,

he lapsed into a deep depression, which the Bologna mission lifts him out

of. Captain Black first tried to get revenge on Major Major by initiating

the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade, when he forced all the men to swear

elaborate oaths of loyalty before doing basic things like eating meals. He

refused to let Major Major sign a loyalty oath, and hoped thereby to make

him appear disloyal. The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a major event in

the camp, until the fearsome Major ----- de Coverley put a stop to it by

hollering "Give me eat!" in the mess hall without signing an oath.

It rains interminably before the Bologna mission, and the bombing run

is delayed by the rain. The men all hope it will never stop raining, and

when it does, Yossarian moves the bomb line on the map so that the

commanding officers will think Bologna has already been captured. Then the

rain starts again. In the meantime, Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen tries to sell

Yossarian a cigarette lighter, thus going into competition with Milo as a

black market trader. He is aghast that Milo has cornered the entire world

market for Egyptian cotton but is unable to unload any of it. The men are

terrified and miserable over Bologna. Clevenger and Yossarian argue about

whether it is Yossarian's duty to bomb Bologna, and by the middle of the

second week of waiting, everyone in the squadron looks like Hungry Joe. One

night Yossarian, Nately, and Dunbar go for a drunken drive with Chief White

Halfoat; they crash the jeep, and realize it has stopped raining. Back in

the tents, Hungry Joe is trying to shoot Huple's cat, which has been giving

him nightmares, and the men force Hungry Joe to fight the cat fairly. The

cat runs away, and Hungry Joe is the self-satisfied winner; then he goes

back to sleep and has another nightmare about the cat.

Major ----- de Coverley is a daunting, majestic man with a lion's mane

of white hair, an eagle's gaze, and a transparent eyepatch. Everyone is

afraid of him, and no one will talk to him. His sole duties include

travelling to major cities captured by the Americans and renting rooms for

his men to take rest leaves in; he spends the rest of his time playing

horseshoes. He is so good at his room- renting duties that he always

manages to be photographed with the first wave of American troops moving

into a city, a fact which perplexes both the enemy and the American

commanders. Major ----- de Coverley is a force of nature, but when

Yossarian moved the bomb line, he was fooled and traveled to enemy-

controlled Bologna; he still has not returned. Once, Milo approached him on

the horseshoe range and convinced him to authorize Milo to import eggs with

Air Force planes. This elated the men, except for Colonel Cathcart, whose

spur-of-the-moment attempt to promote Major Major failed, unlike his

attempt to give Yossarian a medal some time earlier, which succeeded. Back

when Yossarian was brave, he circled over a target twice in order to hit

it; on the second overpass, Mudd was killed by shrapnel. The authorities

didn't know how to rebuke Yossarian for his foolhardiness, so they decided

to stave off criticism by giving him a medal.

The squadron finally receives the go-ahead to bomb Bologna, and by this

time Yossarian doesn't feel like going over the target even once. He

pretends that his plane's intercom system is broken and orders his men to

turn back. They land at the deserted airfield just before dawn, feeling

strangely morose; Yossarian takes a nap on the beach and wakes up when the

planes fly back. Not a single plane has been hit. Yossarian thinks that

there must have been too many clouds for the men to bomb the city, and that

they will have to make another attempt, but he is wrong. There was no

antiaircraft fire, and the city was bombed with no losses to the Americans.

Captain Pilchard and Captain Wren ineffectually reprimand Yossarian and

his crew for turning back, then inform the men that they will have to bomb

Bologna again, as they missed the ammunition dumps the first time.

Yossarian confidently flies in, assuming there will be no antiaircraft

fire, and is stunned when shrapnel begins firing up toward him through the

skies. He furiously directs McWatt through evasive maneuvers, and fights

with the strangely cheerful Aarfy until the bombs are dropped; Yossarian

doesn't die, and the plane lands safely. He heads immediately for emergency

rest leave in Rome, where he meets Luciana the same night.

Luciana is a beautiful Italian girl Yossarian meets at a bar in Rome.

After he buys her dinner and dances with her, she agrees to sleep with him,

but not right then--she will come to his room the next morning. She does,

then angrily refuses to sleep with Yossarian until she cleans his room--she

disgustedly calls him a pig. Finally, she lets him sleep with her.

Afterward, Yossarian falls in love with her and asks her to marry him; she

says she can't marry him because he's crazy, and he's crazy because he

wants to marry her, because no one in their right mind would marry a girl

who wasn't a virgin. She tells him about a scar she got when the Americans

bombed her town. Suddenly, Hungry Joe rushes in with his camera, and

Yossarian and Luciana have to get dressed. Laughing, they go outside, where

they part ways. Luciana gives Yossarian her number, telling him she expects

that he will tear it up as soon as she leaves, self-impressed that such a

pretty girl would sleep with him for free. He asks her why on Earth he

would do such a thing. As soon as she leaves, Yossarian, self-impressed

that such a pretty girl would sleep with him for free, tears up her number.

Almost immediately, he regrets it, and, after learning that Colonel

Cathcart has raised the number of missions to forty, he makes the anguished

decision to go straight to the hospital.

Chapters 17-21

Things are better at the hospital, Yossarian decides, than they are 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 aren't, some men get sick and some don't, with no

reference to who deserves what. Some time earlier Clevinger saw justice in

it, but Yossarian was too busy keeping track of all the forces trying to

kill him to listen. Later, he and Hungry Joe collect lists of fatal

diseases with which they worry Doc Daneeka, who is the only person who can

ground Yossarian, according to Major Major. Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian to

fly his fifty-five missions, and he'll think about helping him.

The first time Yossarian ever goes to the hospital, he is still a

private. He feigns an abdominal pain, then mimics the mysterious ailment of

the soldier who saw everything twice. He spends Thanksgiving in the

hospital, and vows to spend all future Thanksgivings there; but he spends

the next Thanksgiving in bed with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, arguing

about God. Once Yossarian is "cured" of seeing everything twice, he is

asked to pretend to be a dying soldier for a mother and father who have

traveled to see their son, who died that morning. Yossarian allows them to

bandage his face, and pretends to be the soldier.

The ambitious Colonel Cathcart browbeats the chaplain, demanding prayer

before each bombing run, then abandons the idea when he realizes that the

Saturday Evening Post, where he got the idea, probably wouldn't give him

any publicity for it. 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. On his

way home, the chaplain meets Colonel Korn, Colonel Cathcart's wily, cynical

sidekick, who mocks Colonel Cathcart in front of the chaplain and is highly

suspicious of the plum tomato Colonel Cathcart gave the chaplain. At his

tent in the woods, the chaplain encounters the hostile Corporal Whitcomb,

his atheist assistant, who resents him deeply for holding back his career.

Corporal Whitcomb tells the chaplain that a C.I.D. man suspects him of

signing Washington Irving's name to official papers, and of stealing plum

tomatoes. The poor chaplain is very unhappy, helpless to improve anyone's

life.

Colonel Cathcart is preoccupied with the problem of Yossarian, who has

become a real black eye for him, most recently by complaining about the

number of missions, but previously by appearing naked at his own medal

ceremony shortly after Snowden's death. Colonel Cathcart wishes he knew how

to solve the problem and impress General Dreedle, his commanding officer.

General Dreedle doesn't care what his men do, as long as they remain

reliable military quantities. He travels everywhere with a buxom nurse, and

worries mostly about Colonel Moodus, his despised son in law, whom he

occasionally asks Chief White Halfoat to punch in the nose. Once Colonel

Korn tried to undercut Colonel Cathcart by giving a flamboyant briefing to

impress General Dreedle; General Dreedle told Colonel Cathcart that Colonel

Korn made him sick.

Chapters 22-26

Yossarian loses his nerve on the mission that follows Colonel Korn's

extravagant briefing, the mission where Snowden is killed and spattered all

over Yossarian's uniform when Dobbs goes crazy and seizes the plane's

controls from Huple. As he dies, Snowden pleads with Yossarian to help him;

he says he is cold. Dobbs is a terrible pilot and a wreck of a man, and he

later tells Yossarian he plans to kill Colonel Cathcart before he raises

the mission total again; he asks Yossarian to give him the go-ahead, but

Yossarian is unable to do so, so Dobbs abandons his plan. Yossarian thinks

that Dobbs is almost as bad as Orr, with whom Yossarian and Milo recently

took a trip to stock up on supplies. As they travel, Orr and Yossarian

gradually realize the extent of Milo's control over the black market and

vast international influence: he is the mayor of Palermo, the Assistant

Governor-General of Malta, the Vice-Shah of Oran, the Caliph of Baghdad,

the Imam of Damascus, the Sheik of Araby, and is worshipped as a god in

parts of Africa. Each region has embraced him because he revitalized their

economy with his syndicate, in which everybody has a share. Nevertheless,

throughout their trip, Orr and Yossarian are forced to sleep in the plane

while Milo enjoys lavish palaces, and they are finally awakened in the

middle of the night so that Milo can rush his shipment of red bananas to

their next stop.

One evening Nately finds his whore in Rome again after a long search.

He tries to convince Yossarian and Aarfy to take two of her friends for

thirty dollars each. Aarfy objects that he has never had to pay for sex.

Nately's whore is sick of Nately, and begins to swear at him; then Hungry

Joe arrives, and the group abandons Aarfy and goes to the apartment

building where the girls live. Here they find a seemingly endless flow of

naked young women; Hungry Joe is torn between taking in the scene and

rushing back for his camera. Nately argues with an old man who lives at the

building about nationalism and moral duty--the old man claims Italy is

doing better than America in the war because it has already been occupied,

so Italian boys are no longer being killed. He gleefully admits to swearing

loyalty to whatever nation happens to be in power. The patriotic,

idealistic Nately cannot believe his ears, and argues somewhat haltingly

for America's international supremacy and the values it represents. But he

is troubled because, though they are absolutely nothing alike, the old man

reminds him of his father.

By April, Milo's influence is massive. The mess officer controls the

international black market, plays a major role in the world economy, and

uses Air Force planes from countries all over the world to carry shipments

of his supplies; the planes are repainted with an "M & M Enterprises" logo,

but Milo continues to insist that everybody has a share in his syndicate.

Milo contracts with the Germans to bomb the Americans, and with the

Americans to shoot down German planes. German anti-aircraft guns contracted

by Milo even shot down Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent, for which

Yossarian holds a grudge against Milo. Milo wants Yossarian's help

concocting a solution for unloading his massive holdings of Egyptian

cotton, which he cannot sell and which threatens to ruin his entire

operation. One evening after dinner, Milo's planes begin to bomb Milo's own

camp: He has landed another contract with the Germans, and dozens of men

are wounded and killed during the attack. Almost everyone wants to end M &

M Enterprises right then, but Milo shows them how much money they have all

made, and the survivors almost all forgive him. While Yossarian sits naked

in a tree watching Snowden's funeral, Milo seeks him out to talk to him

about the cotton; he gives Yossarian some chocolate-covered cotton and

tries to convince him it is really candy. Yossarian tells Milo to ask the

government to buy his cotton, and Milo is struck by the intelligence behind

the idea.

The chaplain is troubled. No one seems to treat him as a regular human

being; everyone is uncomfortable in his presence, he is intimidated by the

soldiers--especially Colonel Cathcart--and he is generally ineffectual as a

religious leader. He grows increasingly miserable, and is sustained solely

by the thought of the religious visions he has seen since his arrival, such

as the vision of the naked man in the tree at Snowden's funeral. Of course,

the naked man was Yossarian. He dreams of his wife and children dying

horribly in his absence. He tries to see Major Major about the number of

missions the men are asked to fly, but, like everyone else, finds that

Major Major will not allow him into his office except when he is out. On

the way to see Major Major a second time, the chaplain encounters Flume,

Chief White Halfoat's old roommate who is so afraid of having his throat

slit while he sleeps that he has taken to living in the forest. The

chaplain then learns that Corporal Whitcomb has been promoted to sergeant

by Colonel Cathcart for an idea that the colonel believes will land him in

the Saturday Evening Post. The chaplain tries to mingle with the men at the

officers' club, but Colonel Cathcart periodically throws him out. The

chaplain takes to doubting everything, even God.

The night Nately falls in love with his whore, she sits naked from the

waist down in a room full of enlisted men playing blackjack. She is already

sick of Nately, and tries to interest one of the enlisted men, but none of

them notice her. Nately follows her out, then to the officers' apartments

in Rome, where she tries the same trick on Nately's friends. Aarfy calls

her a slut, and Nately is deeply offended. Aarfy is the navigator of the

flight on which Yossarian is finally hit by flak; he is wounded in the leg

and taken to the hospital, where he and Dunbar change identities by

ordering lower-ranking men to trade beds with them. Dunbar pretends to be

A. Fortiori. Finally they are caught by Nurse Cramer and Nurse Duckett, who

takes Yossarian by the ear and puts him back to bed.

Chapters 27-31

The next morning, while Nurse Duckett is smoothing the sheets at the

foot of his bed, Yossarian thrusts his hand up her skirt. She shrieks and

rushes away, and Dunbar grabs her bosom from behind. When she is finally

rescued by a furious doctor, Yossarian tries to plead insanity--he says he

has a recurring dream about a fish--so he is assigned an appointment with

Major Sanderson, the hospital psychiatrist. Sanderson is more interested in

discussing his own problems than his patient's. Yossarian's friends visit

him in the hospital--Dobbs offers again to kill Colonel Cathcart--and

finally, after Yossarian admits that he thinks people are trying to kill

him and that he has not adjusted to the war, Major Sanderson decides that

Yossarian really is crazy and decides to send him home. But because of the

identity mixup perpetrated by Yossarian and Dunbar earlier in their

hospital stay, there is a mistake, and A. Fortiori is sent home instead.

Furiously, Yossarian goes to see Doc Daneeka, but Doc Daneeka will not

ground Yossarian for reasons of insanity. Who else but a crazy man, he

asks, would go out to fight?

Yossarian goes to see Dobbs, and tells him to go ahead and kill Colonel

Cathcart. But Dobbs has finished his sixty missions, and is waiting to be

sent home; he no longer needs to kill Colonel Cathcart. When Yossarian says

that Colonel Cathcart will simply raise the number of missions again, Dobbs

says he'll wait and see, but that perhaps Orr would help Yossarian kill the

colonel. Orr crashed his plane again while Yossarian was in the hospital

and was fished out of the ocean--none of the life jackets in his plane

worked, because Milo took out the carbon dioxide tanks to use for making

ice-cream sodas. Now, Orr is tinkering with the stove he is trying to build

in his and Yossarian's tent; he suggests that Yossarian should try flying a

mission with him for practice in case he ever has to make a crash landing.

Yossarian broods about the rumored second mission to Bologna. Orr is making

noise and irritating him, and Yossarian imagines killing him, which

Yossarian finds a relaxing thought. They talk about women--Orr says they

don't like Yossarian, and Yossarian replies that they're crazy. Orr tells

Yossarian that he knows Yossarian has asked not to fly with him, and offers

to tell Yossarian the story of why that naked girl was hitting him with her

shoe outside Nately's whore's kid sister's room in Rome. Yossarian

laughingly declines, and the next time Orr goes up he again crashes his

plane into the ocean. This time, his survival raft drifts away from the

others and disappears.

The men are dismayed when they learn that General Peckem has had

Scheisskopf, now a colonel, transferred onto his staff. Peckem is pleased

because he thinks the move will increase his strength compared to that of

his rival General Dreedle. Colonel Scheisskopf is dismayed by the news that

he will no longer be able to conduct parades every afternoon. Scheisskopf

immediately irritates his colleagues in Group Headquarters, and Peckem

takes him along for an inspection of Colonel Cathcart's squadron briefing.

At the preliminary briefing, the men are displeased to learn they will be

bombing an undefended village into rubble simply so that Colonel Cathcart

can impress General Peckem with the clean aerial photography their bomb

patterns will allow. When Peckem and Scheisskopf arrive, Cathcart is angry

that another colonel has appeared to rival him. He gives the briefing

himself, and though he feels shaky and unconfident, he makes it through,

and congratulates himself on a job well done under pressure.

On the bombing run, Yossarian flashes back to the mission when Snowden

died, and he snaps. During evasive action, he threatens to kill McWatt if

he doesn't follow orders. He is worried that McWatt will hold a grudge, but

after the mission McWatt only seems concerned about Yossarian. Yossarian

has begun seeing Nurse Duckett, and he enjoys making love to her on the

beach. Sometimes, while they sit looking at the ocean, Yossarian thinks

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28