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Chapters
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Chapters
Chapters at a glance
Catch-22 has 42 chapters.
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Chapters42 items
The Texan
Yossarian is in the hospital faking a liver complaint to avoid flying more missions. He and the other patients have a comfortable routine going until a cheerful, patriotic Texan a…
Clevinger
Yossarian is back flying missions, and the chapter fills in his friendship with Clevinger, an earnest, idealistic Harvard man who genuinely believes in the war effort and argues w…
Havermeyer
The chapter introduces Havermeyer, the squadron's best bombardier, who is fearless in the air because he genuinely doesn't seem to understand danger.
Doc Daneeka
Doc Daneeka is the squadron's flight surgeon, a deeply unhappy man who resents being in the military and misses his profitable medical practice back home.
Chief White Halfoat
Chief White Halfoat is a Native American officer from Oklahoma who has a theory that oil companies have been following his family for generations because oil is always discovered…
Hungry Joe
This chapter focuses on Hungry Joe, a former Life magazine photographer who is now a combat pilot. He has completed enough missions to go home multiple times, but each time the mi…
McWatt
McWatt is introduced as the most cheerful and seemingly well-adjusted man on the base, which makes him one of the most dangerous.
Lieutenant Scheisskopf
The novel jumps back in time to Yossarian's training period in the United States, where Lieutenant Scheisskopf is obsessed with winning parade competitions.
Major Major Major Major
Major Major Major Major is one of the novel's most memorable characters. He was born with that name, promoted to Major by a computer error on his first day, and has been socially…
Wintergreen
Wintergreen is an ex-PFC who keeps getting busted down in rank for going AWOL, but he has real power because he controls the mail and decides what communications get through.
Captain Black
Captain Black runs the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade, forcing every officer and enlisted man to sign loyalty oaths before getting food, equipment, or anything else.
Bologna
The squadron is assigned to bomb Bologna, and everyone is terrified because they expect massive casualties. Yossarian moves the bomb line on the map to make it look like Bologna h…
Major — de Coverley
This chapter fills in Major de Coverley's background, or tries to. He is one of the most imposing figures on the base, yet almost nothing about him is known.
Kid Sampson
Kid Sampson is a pilot in the squadron, and this chapter sketches his personality and place in the group. He is reckless and eager in ways that make the other men nervous.
Piltchard & Wren
Piltchard and Wren are the two squadron operations officers who assign missions. They are enthusiastic about their work in a way that disturbs everyone around them.
Luciana
Yossarian is on leave in Rome and meets Luciana, a young Italian woman with a scar on her back. They spend the night together, and she agrees to give him her address even though s…
The Soldier in White
Back in the hospital, Yossarian and the other patients are disturbed by the return of the Soldier in White, a man completely encased in bandages and plaster with tubes running in…
The Soldier Who Saw Everything Twice
This chapter flashes back to an earlier hospital stay where Yossarian faked a symptom, claiming to see everything twice, and the doctors treated him as a genuine case.
Colonel Cathcart
This chapter is a character study of Colonel Cathcart, the commanding officer who keeps raising the number of missions required before a man can go home.
Corporal Whitcomb
Chaplain Tappman is investigated after Corporal Whitcomb, his assistant, reports him for allegedly stealing a plum tomato and for writing letters home to the families of dead sold…
General Dreedle
The squadron endures a bombing mission over Avignon that goes badly, and the chaos surrounding General Dreedle's visit exposes how military authority works in practice.
Milo the Mayor
Milo Minderbinder's syndicate has expanded so far that he holds honorary titles across multiple towns and countries. The chapter follows Yossarian and Milo traveling through vario…
Nately's Old Man
Yossarian and Nately visit Rome, where Nately spends time with a prostitute he has fallen in love with. At the brothel, Nately gets into extended arguments with an old Italian man…
Milo
This chapter digs further into Milo's syndicate and reveals one of its most extreme operations: Milo has contracted with the Germans to bomb his own squadron's airfield, and he di…
The Chaplain
This chapter focuses on the chaplain, who is one of the novel's most sympathetic figures. He is a genuinely good man who is also completely ineffective.
Aarfy
This chapter centers on Aarfy, the navigator who infuriates Yossarian by being cheerfully useless during bombing runs.
Nurse Duckett
Yossarian recovers in the hospital and pursues a relationship with Nurse Duckett. The hospital becomes a recurring refuge from combat, and Nurse Duckett represents a brief, real h…
Dobbs
Dobbs, who previously tried to get Yossarian to help him kill Colonel Cathcart, returns with the same plan. The mission count has gone up again, and Dobbs is desperate.
Peckem
The chapter shifts to General Peckem, who is obsessed with expanding his administrative authority. Peckem schemes to absorb combat operations under his command, caring far more ab…
Dunbar
Dunbar's philosophy of extending life by making time feel longer through boredom and misery gets more attention here.
Mrs. Daneeka
Doc Daneeka is officially listed as dead after the plane he was supposedly on crashes, even though he is very much alive and standing on the ground.
Yo-Yo's Roomies
This chapter sketches the rotating cast of men who have shared Yossarian's tent over the course of the war. Each roommate has a distinct fate, and most of those fates are bad.
Nately's Whore
Nately is killed on a mission, and when Yossarian goes to tell the young woman Nately loved, she reacts by trying to kill Yossarian.
Thanksgiving
The chapter is set around a Thanksgiving meal that becomes another occasion for the base's dysfunction and Milo's war profiteering to show themselves.
Milo the Militant
Milo pushes further into military operations, now actively arguing that the syndicate's needs should shape combat decisions.
The Cellar
Nately's whore has been trying to kill Yossarian ever since he delivered the news of Nately's death. She ambushes him repeatedly throughout the chapter, appearing in unexpected pl…
General Scheisskopf
General Scheisskopf, the parade-obsessed officer from the early chapters, has somehow risen to a position of real authority.
Kid Sister
Nately's whore's kid sister becomes a focus here. Yossarian has been worried about her throughout the novel, and now with Nately dead and his whore trying to kill Yossarian, the k…
The Eternal City
Yossarian walks through Rome at night and what he sees is a sustained nightmare. The city is full of violence, cruelty, and suffering happening in plain sight with no one interven…
Snowden
This chapter finally delivers the full account of Snowden's death, which has been fragmented and withheld across the entire novel.
Snowden (Reprise)
This chapter finally delivers the full memory of Snowden's death that has haunted Yossarian throughout the novel. On the Avignon mission, Yossarian tends to what he thinks is Snow…
Yossarian
In the final chapter, Yossarian learns that Nately's whore has stabbed him and that Nately himself is dead. He also learns that Orr, long assumed dead after ditching in the sea, h…
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