VICTOR J. MILNE

Most recent studies of Catch-22 share the assumptions that the novel presents the world as absurd and chaotic, and that Yossarian's desertion reflects the currently widespread sentiment in favor of dropping out of a mad society. Thus Yossarian has been variously presented as an idealistic "puer eternis" who "refuses the traditional journey of learning in manhood,"¹ and as the traditional comic rogue-figure who "never tries to change the society that he scorns."² Although most critics are agreed on these points, their evaluative judgments run through the whole spectrum from laudatory to condemnatory, and the majority of them register some uneasiness about the moral perspective which they impute to Heller. John Wain, for instance, in a generally favorable review accuses Heller of sidestepping moral issues.³ However, Wain's strictures are mild compared to those of Norman Mailer and Joseph J. Waldmeir, who link their complaints about the moral vision of the novel with a charge of structural looseness.⁴ As well as animadverting on Heller's truly Shandean propensity to digress, Mailer (in common with most other critics) deplores the sudden shift in tone and outlook that sunders, the final chapter from the rest of the novel: ". . .

building upon itself the book becomes substantial until the last fifty pages grow suddenly and surprisingly powerful, only to be marred by an ending over the last five pages which is hysterical, sentimental and well-eyed for Hollywood."⁵

The intention of the present study is to substitute for these opinions a new and more positive interpretation of Heller's ethical and metaphysical perspective, and in so doing to justify the formal peculiarities of the novel as appropriate to the author's vision. At the root of the dissatisfaction with Catch-22 lies a failure to recognize its epic inspiration, which not only explains its digressive structure but also constitutes the vehicle for Heller's moral vision. Catch-22 uses the mock-epic form to dramatize a clash between two opposing moralities. The one ethic, exemplified by Yossarian, is a Christian ethic of universal benevolence, which, as the symbolic importance of Sweden suggests, expresses itself economically in terms of socialism and politically in terms of non-repressive government. The conflicting outlook, which will be referred to as the competitive ethic, is associated with capitalism, false patriotism, and the heroic code of the true epic and is exemplified by Colonel Cathcart and the other villains. The conflict between the two codes inevitably raises a second question: how is the man of good will to succeed or even survive in dealing with the unscrupulous adherents of the competitive ethic? Yossarian's desertion, seen in the context of the symbolism of the novel and the explicitly theological language of the last chapter, attempts to answer that question. The answer is a religious one, which is in harmony with classical Protestant doctrine, and which is most readily explicated in terms of the ethical teaching of a great modern theologian--Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The parody of the epic is most apparent in the plot of Catch-22, which offers notable parallels to the Iliad. When Yossarian refuses to fly any more missions and marches "backward with his gun on his hip," Colonel Korn inquires, "Who does he think he is-- Achilles?"⁶ (401). Although this seems to be the only occasion in the novel on which explicit reference is made to the Iliad, it is sufficient to remind the reader that Yossarian's situation is identical with that of Achilles. Let us review briefly the relevant facts about the Iliad. The "argument" of the epic is not the fall of Troy but the wrath of Achilles, and the main plot is concerned with the efforts of the Greeks to bring Achilles back into battle, just as the main plot of Catch-22 is concerned with the pressures put on Yossarian to fly more combat missions. The Iliad begins in medias res with the bitter quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, in which Achilles berates his commander for much the same flaws that are most prominent in Colonel Cathcart--acquisitiveness and cowardice. Achilles retires to his quarters to sulk, his friend Patroclus voluntarily goes into battle, and his death precipitates Achilles' reconciliation with Agamemnon, his return to battle, and consequently his death.

If Catch-22 is carefully examined, it will be found to present a close parallel to these events. The novel opens in medias res at the point where Yossarian has "made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital" (8). Nately serves as the Patroclus-figure, and since the novel provides a mirrorimage of the values of the epic--that is, everything is seen in reverse, Nately's death precipitates Yossarian's firm resolve to fly no more combat missions. Paradoxically, this results in a reconciliation between Yossarian and Cathcart when Yossarian accepts the "odious" deal whereby he is to be sent home transformed into a hero for purposes of public relations. (A minor parallel is that both commanders are incompetent blusterers and must rely on their shrewd subordinates --Ulysses and Korn--to win over the recalcitrant warriors.) Yet the novel cannot end at this point, and the crisis of decision is repeated in Chapter Forty-One where Nately's place is taken by all of Yossarian's dead pals, and Yossarian tells Danby that he intends to break the odious deal.

From the foregoing account, Heller's novel is obviously far from a detailed reworking of an ancient legend. Inevitably, in accommodating the plot of the Iliad to a modern military situation, Heller has made considerable changes. Catch-22, for instance, begins with the period of rebellious sulking and not with a quarrel, which in a twentieth-century army would immediately force a decision to face a court-martial or to desert. Another minor difference is that Yossarian is forced to fly missions up to the time of Nately's death; yet the difference is not so great as might be supposed, for all the events that are chronologically posterior to the opening deal with Yossarian's rebellion, and all the combat missions described up to the time of Nately's death are flashbacks to a period prior to the opening. The only important change is dictated by Heller's need to make the plot of the Iliad serve his own moral vision. There must be two crises of decision in order to present Yossarian's flight to Sweden as an act of heroism and responsibility rather than of cowardice. Yossarian is free to choose the odious deal but does not, and Heller clearly indicates that his decision is motivated largely by loyalty to his dead friends: " Goddammit, Danby. I've got friends who were killed in this war. I can't make a deal now" (456-7). The morally responsible nature of Yossarian's desertion is further underscored by Yossarian's allusion to a well-known biblical paradox when he tells Danby that the odious deal is not a way to save himself but a way to lose himself (456).

As well as parodying the plot of the Iliad, Heller makes use of some of the generic devices of the epic form. A characteristic feature is the digressive amplitude of the narrative, which confers the liberty of developing minor characters far more fully than their roles in the plot require. Several critics have been troubled by this violation of the strictest canons of structural unity in Catch-22. Yet the digressions make an essential contribution to the texture of the novel and the epic. In the Iliad an undertone of universal pathos is built up by the accumulated effect of the structurally irrelevant descriptions of the heroes' homelands and of the ways in which they came to join the Achaian host, and the end result is that the epic achieves cosmic significance. Heller, too, uses digressions to give his work a universal frame of reference so that war is treated not so much as a problem in its own right but rather as a symbol of the plight of modern western civilization, and this he accomplishes with a fine blend of pathos and comedy, appropriate to his mock-epic form, as, for example, in the digression on Major Major's upbringing and his induction into the army.

Another constant feature of the epic is the elegiac note, heard in the famous passages in Beowulf and in Homer's formulaic conclusion to a battle scene--the bodies of the young men are laid in the dark earth far from their homes. Heller introduces the elegiac element with just the degree of grotesque parody appropriate to his inversion of the Iliad when Yossarian disrupts Clevinger's educational session with the unanswerable question: "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?" (35). The parody of Villon's elegy seems unimportant at this point, but significance accrues to it throughout the novel until in the penultimate chapter the full revelation comes in a scene which is well qualified by its intensity to serve as the ethical center of the whole novel.

Closely allied to the elegiac note is the tragic sense of life in the primary epic. George Steiner holds that the Iliad is the prototype of all tragedy, and he affirms that the essence of tragedy is doubt about the rationality and justice of the universe, an assertion "that the forces which shape or destroy our lives lie outside the governance of reason."⁷ The Iliad taken as a whole may be said to pose this root question of theodicy and to hint at a despairing answer, but none of the characters in the epic ever engages in such radical questioning. In this respect Yossarian goes beyond Achilles to become Job: "Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation" (184). The question of the justice of the universe runs like a black thread through the novel, sometimes hyperbolically bitter as above, sometimes unrelievedly tragic, and sometimes transmuted into comedy as when one of the hospital patients observes: "There just doesn't seem to be any logic to this system of rewards and punishment. . . . Who can explain malaria as a consequence of fornication?" (175). In Catch-22 the tragic questioning of God's ways to men is prompted above all by the war, by the pointless extinction of one human life after another: " Kraft was a skinny harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted only to be liked, and was destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition. Instead of being liked, he was dead. . . . He had lived innocuously for a little while and then had gone down in flame over Ferrara on the seventh day, while God was resting . . ."(56).

Homer's tragedy is intensified because the Olympian gods provide "a comic background to the tragedy below."⁸ For example, Ares' complaint to Zeus when he is lightly wounded by Diomedes is comically outrageous in its insignificance following a battle in which scores of warriors stoically accepted death. In Catch-22 the equivalent comedy is provided by the upper echelons of the military, who are safe from the dangers of combat, and who at all times act as though they had no share in mortality. Just as the gods urge whole armies into battle and doom certain men to death, all the while quarrelling jealously among themselves, so the headquarters staff in Catch-22, in the midst of their scramble for status, deliver pep talks and issue the orders that doom men like Nately to an unnecessary death. The parallel between Homer's gods and Heller's senior officers need not be pressed further, except to observe a trace of Zeus' character in General Dreedle, the autocratic but by no means malevolent supreme commander.

One other illuminating parallel between these two literary universes may be developed. Although all the other gods tremble at the words of Zeus almost as much as Colonel Cathcart does at the frown of General Dreedle, neither Zeus nor the Gods as a whole are supreme in the universe. They themselves must submit to the decrees of the Moirai, the impersonal fates that rule the cosmos. In the same way, Dreedle, Peckem, Cathcart, Korn and the rest do not really run the microcosm of Pianosa but merely ratify the decrees of Milo Minderbinder and ex-Pfc Wintergreen. As Colonel Korn explains in a moment of self-revelation, he and the other noncombatant officers are all helpless victims of the competitive ethic: "Everyone teaches us to aspire to higher things, a general is higher than a colonel, and a colonel is higher than a lieutenant-colonel. So we're both aspiring" (435). The competitive ethic is the law decreed by omnipotent capitalism, personified in Milo Minderbinder, who, as his very name indicates, has the power to shackle thought and decent human feelings, and who, Heller makes plain, is to be conceived of as the supreme deity of this insane world: "Milo was the corn god, the rain god and the rice god in backward regions where such crude gods were still worshipped, and deep inside the jungles of Africa, he intimated with becoming modesty, large graven images of his mustached face could be found overlooking primitive stone altars red with human blood" (244). Of course, from a Christian point of view the pagan gods are no more than devils, and Milo, whose "argosies . . . filled the air" (260), does indeed represent the prince of the powers of the air. As we shall soon see, he is elsewhere unmistakably identified with Satan.

Heller, then, uses the mock-epic form to reject the preChristian (and sub-Christian) values of the military-economic complex, whose competitive ethic is another manifestation of the ancient heroic code. Yossarian, a twentieth-century man with a Christian attitude to the sanctity of human life, finds himself--up to the last chapter--plunged into the indifferent pre-Christian universe of the primary epic. The code appropriate to that alien and hostile universe is most nobly expressed in Sarpedon's great speech before his death, where he claims economic privilege and pride of place for himself and Glaukos because of their valor, and he counsels that they take the risks of battle since death is inevitable. Whereas the warriors of the Iliad submit stoically to sudden death, Yossarian resolves "to live forever or die in the attempt" (30). Whereas they chiefly prize fame won in battle, Yossarian answers with a negative Colonel Korn's question: "Don't you want to earn more unit citations and more oak leaf clusters for your air medal?" (435). Yossarian categorically rejects the heroic code in his talk, but the definitive disavowal of these outworn values comes in the act of desertion. Thus above all else, the conflict between the competitive ethic and the humanistic Christian ethic determines the literary form of the novel as a "Bologniad", as a mock-epic embellished with comedy and horror, in which a modern Achilles says "baloney" to the demands of a corrupt society with its iniquitous heroic code requiring the sacrifice of human lives.

For the very reason that Yossarian opposes himself to the competitive ethic and its attendant heroic code we cannot view him as the traditional rogue figure who delights us by his impudent, self-centered indifference to conventional morality. Although he is concerned with his personal safety, he wants to save his life in both senses of the phrase. We have observed that Heller makes every effort to show that the desertion is a responsible, moral act; to this we must now add that he is not inconsistent in drawing attention to the moral perplexities involved in Yossarian's choice. Inevitably, because of a passion for oversimplifying moral issues, some critics have failed to appreciate the rightness of Yossarian's decision. Thus Joseph Waldmeir wants Heller to decide univocally in favour of one side of a moral dilemma:

There is nothing wrong with an American novelist being in favour of the Second World War; Heller would in fact be unique if he opposed it. But since he appears to be opposed to it throughout the novel, there is something wrong with Yossarian, even as Heller's spokesman, mouthing pro-war sentiments.⁹

Waldmeir is referring, of course, to the conversation between Yossarian and Danby in which Yossarian clearly desires an American victory over Nazi Germany even though he is withdrawing from active participation in the war. Yossarian, however, does not have a choice between absolute good and absolute evil. Instead he is faced with a choice between two incompatible relative goods--a patriotism that is justifiable because his country is engaged in a just war and a rebellion against an inhumane system of exploitation, whereby Cathcart and Korn enjoy their meaningless triumphs of egotism at the expense of men's lives. The opposition between the two goods means that each good has an evil inseparably annexed to it. Rebellion against the American system of exploitation involves abandonment of the struggle against the inhumanity of the Nazi state; support of the American war effort entails supporting the evil system and being disloyal to the friends who have suffered under it. Although Heller leaves no doubt that the American system, which gives so much scope to the petty oppressors, is still a lesser evil than the frank tyranny of the Nazis, we are made to feel in the course of the novel that Yossarian must take a stand against the exploitation that confronts him.

At many points Yossarian argues with Major Major, Clevinger and Danby the ethical dilemma of submitting to exploitation in order to further a morally good cause, and all the while the plot of the novel leads him to the point where the quandary is expressed in its plainest form, when he is forced to say of those who are in charge of prosecuting the war against Germany: "They've got all my pals, haven't they?" (45). Just before Yossarian decisively rejects the odious deal, he relives his gruesome experience with Snowden, and in his reflections, we have clearly stated the dominant ethical concern of the novel; one must respect above all else the sanctity of individual human lives:

It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out of 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. The spirit gone, man is garbage. (450)

Yossarian has already learned as he tells Danby: "Between me and every ideal I always find Scheisskopfs, Peckems, Korns and Cathcarts. And that sort of changes the ideal" (454). Confronted with the appalling physical facts of "liver, lungs, kidneys, ribs, stomach and bits of the stewed tomatoes Snowden had eaten that day for lunch" (449), Yossarian can only choose the concrete ethic of the inviolability of human life in opposition to the remote ideal. Moreover, Yossarian remains invincibly loyal to his ethical judgment. When Dobbs offers still another escape by announcing that he will kill Cathcart if only Yossarian will say that it is a good idea, Yossarian cannot bring himself to say that word.

Obviously there is no unequivocally right decision for Yossarian, and we may say in objection to Waldmeir's criticism that it is neither morally nor aesthetically justifiable for an author to ignore the complexities of the ethical problems he raises. If Heller had implied that the question of an Allied victory in World War II was morally neutral, we should have despised such a shallow view of human affairs, and the lack of dramatic tension in Yossarian's choice would have rendered the novel boring. Waldmeir's criticism totally misses the mark, but it does perform a valuable service in directing our attention to the moral dilemma of the novel. Although the novel needs no defence beyond a demonstration that Heller has dealt faithfully with the moral complexities of his hero's situation, the recognition of the paradox inevitably does prompt the question whether there is a resolution within the novel. There is some evidence of such a resolution, and to understand it we must examine the theological background of the novel--particularly, the concept of guilt.

One of the most important episodes in the novel is Yossarian's stripping off his clothes to go to Snowden's funeral and to receive his medal. As Sanford Pinsker notes, the incident symbolizes an attempt to return to "primal innocence."¹⁰ After Snowden has "spilled his secret" Yossarian feels uncomfortable--that is to say, guilty--in his uniform. Amusingly enough, Yossarian, as a second Adam in naked innocence, rejects temptation in a ludicrous re-enactment of the story of the Fall of Man. Sitting on what he calls "the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (269), Yossarian is approached by Milo Minderbinder playing the role of the serpent and offering in place of the fruit a piece of chocolate-coated Egyptian cotton. The actual temptation is for Yossarian to submit to absurd exploitation and in doing so to give Milo the encouragement he wants to take advantage of all the men in his mess halls. The scene is a highly surrealistic rendering of the central temptation of the novel, which is offered in more realistic terms by Cathcart and Korn: the temptation for Yossarian is always that of sanctioning exploitation by submitting to it.

From a theological viewpoint the novel presents exploitation and submission to exploitation as the two great sins. Exploitation, however, need not involve the imposition of physical hardships; it is better defined in Erich Fromm's phrase as "the reification of man." Thus Milo, viewing the men only as a market to be manipulated, exploits them fully as much in providing broiled Maine lobster as in trying to introduce chocolate-coated cotton to the menu. It is in this sense--the denial of humanity--that Milo, or capitalism, requires human sacrifice. The political system, as much as the market place, encourages the process of reification, and it is particularly noticeable in the idealists, Clevinger and Danby. Even though their actions are externally indistinguishable from those of men who have responsibly decided to serve a cause, they have, in fact, reified themselves in accepting the notion that their value resides only in their utility as cogs in the war-machine. The soldier in white, who functions only as part of a pipeline between two glass jars, and of whom life can be predicated only on the basis of a thermometer reading, is the perfect symbol of the reification of man. Yossarian, then, in insisting upon the unique value of his individual life, constitutes a focal point of resistance to exploitation. Milo and Colonel Korn both recognize his importance and treat him as the bellwether whom the rest of the flock will follow. If Yossarian will allow himself to be used in any way, even in accepting the odious deal, none of the others will refuse to fly combat missions.

In stripping off his clothes Yossarian is trying to deny his complicity in the evils of the world. However, in the chapter entitled "The Eternal City"--let us note in passing that Rome is the "Babylon" of the Book of Revelation, the epitome of the worldly lust for pomp and power--Yossarian acknowledges the guilt that he shares with the rest of humanity:

Nately's whore was on his mind, as were Kraft and Orr and Nately and Dunbar and Kid Sampson and McWatt, and all the poor and stupid and diseased people he had seen in Italy, Egypt and North Africa and knew about in other areas of the world, and Snowden and Nately's whore's kid sister were on his conscience, too. Yossarian thought he knew why Nately's whore held him responsible for Nately's death and wanted to kill him. Why the hell shouldn't she? It was a man's world, and she and everyone younger had every right to blame him and everyone older for every unnatural tragedy that befell them; just as she, even in her grief, was to blame for every man-made misery that landed on her kid sister, and on all other children behind her. Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and someone had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all. (414)

In this passage there is (in addition to a modern redefinition of original sin) a significant explanation for the puzzling attacks of Nately's whore: hers is the role of an accuser, almost a comic equivalent of the Eumenides. Interestingly enough, she succeeds only once in stabbing Yossarian, immediately after he commits his one unequivocally loathsome action in agreeing to the odious deal. Her attack is obviously the incident which jolts Yossarian into rejecting the deal: "Goddammit, Danby. I've got friends who were killed in this war. I can't make a deal now. Getting stabbed by that bitch was the best thing that ever happened to me" (456-7). Thus Nately's whore is to be viewed in the latter part of the novel as an allegorical projection of Yossarian's own conscience, which will not let him come to terms with any form of exploitation.

At this point the moral dilemma of the novel is posed in its acutest form. If Yossarian were to accept the deal, he would be guilty towards his friends, who have been exploited by Milo and Cathcart. If he were to desert he would be guilty towards his country and the just cause in which it is engaged. If he were neither to accept the deal nor to desert, he would face a court-martial on trumped-up charges. A superficial application of Christian ethics would suggest that Yossarian could escape guilt by staying to face the false accusation. However, Yossarian's suffering could have no redemptive value for the other victims since, as Danby points out, all without exception will believe the charges. Yossarian's situation raises in a peculiarly acute form the question of passive suffering as against active resistance. By offering himself as a victim, by trying to keep his conscience spotless, Yossarian would really be helping the powerful exploiters of humanity. In other words, excessive scrupulosity can be dangerous, for it can too easily reconcile hope for social justice with a passive submission to the bluff of the authorities that "Catch-22" says "they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing" (46). Thus Yossarian's decision to desert enacts Heller's ethical judgment that an individual has no right to submit to injustice when his action will help to maintain an unjust system, for the desertion is a postive moral act calculated to discomfort the exploiters, whereas facing the court-martial would represent a paralysis of the will, a desire to maintain purity of conscience at the cost of inaction.

To understand the problem more clearly and Heller's resolution of it, we must examine two subordinate characters, Chaplain Tappman and Major Major. So far as Catch-22 can be allegorized, we may say that these two represent the Christian virtues as popularly conceived and in particular the disabling "virtue" of excessive scrupulosity. They are both men of good will, and they both submit patiently to all the indignities thrust upon them. Major Major, especially, is characterized by his adherence to the Decalogue and the moral teachings of Christ:

He turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his neighbour's ass. In fact, he loved his neighbour and never even bore false witness against him.(89)

The result of such characteristics is that Major Major and the chaplain are both exiled from human society and become ineffectual hermits unable to influence the world for good or evil. This is the price exacted by excessive concern with purity of conscience; one can avoid evil but cannot do good: "The chaplain was a sincerely helpful man who was never able to help anyone . . ." (280). In fact, the chaplain has become so paralyzed by his undeniable virtues that at the end of the novel Yossarian must urge him: "For once in your life, succeed at something" (460).

Yet a theological solution to the dilemma allows the man of good will to engage in redemptive action rather than passive withdrawal and suffering. He must act in good faith and then accept the truth that his action has involved him in guilt. A remarkable verbal parallel in Catch-22--a paradoxical statement of this principle--is applied both to Major Major and to the chaplain:

He had sinned and it was good, for none of the documents to which he had signed Washington Irving's name ever came back. (96)

The chaplain had sinned, and it was good. Common sense told him that telling lies and defecting from duty were sins. On the other hand, everyone knew that sin was evil and that no good could come from evil. But he did feel good; he felt positively marvellous. Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty could not be sins. (372)

There is, of course, a faulty premise in the chaplain's syllogism; every freshman who has been subjected to Paradise Lost knows of a considerable body of opinion which holds that good can come from evil. The original paradox is true and cannot be explained away: "He had sinned and it was good." As the chaplain's further reflections demonstrate, one must not infer from the paradox that one should "sin the more that grace may more abound;" any attempt to deny the genuine sinfulness of sin could result only in the self-satisfied and self-deceiving hypocrisy of a Milo Minderbinder or a Colonel Cathcart: "It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth. . . . Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character" (372). In other words, one must learn to dispense with scrupulosity without becoming unscrupulous.

Catch-22 has seemed inconsistent to a number of critics because the theological substructure of the novel is in full accord with the paradoxical insights of classical Protestant thought. On the one hand, Protestant doctrine recognizes the sinfulness of all human endeavour, and on the other hand, it refuses to be seduced into ignoring the imperfect world of becoming in favour of the perfect world of being. On the contrary, Protestant theology insists on activism even though sin inevitably results; the principle is enshrined in Luther's startling maxim, pecca fortiter--sin resolutely. The same notion is expounded more thoroughly in a modern Protestant classic, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Letters and Papers from Prison, a work which may be profitably read in conjunction with Catch-22 as it also comes out of World War II and shows a remarkable affinity in temper to Heller's novel. In analyzing the qualities of the German character which made possible the rise of Nazism, Bonhoeffer blames the typical German virtue of obedience to authority:

The trouble was, he [the German] did not understand his world. He forgot that submissiveness and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends. . . . he could not see that in certain circumstances free and responsible action might have to take precedence over duty and calling. As a compensation he developed in one direction an irresponsible unscrupulousness, and in another an agonizing scrupulosity which invariably frustrated action. Civil courage, however, can only grow out of the free responsibility of free men. Only now are we Germans beginning to discover the meaning of free responsibility. It depends upon a God who demands bold action as the response of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in the process.¹²

What Bonhoeffer calls civil courage and free responsibility are Yossarian's primary virtues and are the virtues most needed in the world of Pianosa.

It would be impossible to summarize Bonhoeffer's complex doctrine of responsibility which forms the core of his ethical thought. Basically, we may say that responsibility involves an acceptance of the need to relate all moral action to the concrete situation of mingled good and evil, and thus it is opposed to a Kantian affirmation of abstract ethical demands which are to be practised universally without regard to the concrete situation. Yossarian recognizes that he must make his choice in the real situation which offers only relative good and relative evil. Any choice will involve sinning against some abstract ethical principle. And according to Bonhoeffer's doctrine a choice such as Yossarian's is justified by God even if the greater evil is unintentionally chosen, for "if any man attempts to escape guilt in responsibility, he detaches himself from the ultimate reality of human existence" and "sets his own personal innocence above his responsibility for men."¹³ Yossarian, then, is the responsible man, in Bonhoeffer's sense, while Clevinger and Danby in their arguments with Yossarian show themselves to be Kantians who cannot understand his reluctance to affirm that an ethical abstraction must be honoured at all times and at all places and under all conditions.  

Our theological perspective can be completed only by a consideration of the God of Catch-22, the true God who stands in opposition to Milo Minderbinder's demonic claims. One persistent motif in the narrative is the chaplain's progressive loss of faith in God. Like Yossarian the chaplain is led by the spectacle of meaningless death to question the justice of the universe, and after his failure to dissuade Colonel Cathcart from raising the required number of missions, he is ready to disbelieve "in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, humane, universal, anthropomorphic, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God" (293). Why should he believe in such a God? This God has based his reputation on his abilities as a benevolent stage-magician who will always intervene on behalf of a right-thinking, humane AngloSaxon, but "there were no miracles; prayers went unanswered, and misfortune tramped with equal brutality on the virtuous and the corrupt" (293-4). The chaplain's "atheism" may be regarded as an essential preliminary condition of true faith; he must reject the anthropomorphic idol invented to ratify the pretensions and prejudices of a particular culture if he is ever to believe in the mysterious Biblical God who impartially distributes temporal blessings and misfortunes. Moreover, the chaplain rejects the anthropomorphic God in his role as the benevolent, grandfatherly deity of popular religion, who is invoked only at funerals to give frightened individuals the cheap and uncertain consolation of a supernatural continuation of their self-centered personalities:

The chaplain felt most deceitful presiding at funerals, and it would not have astonished him to learn that the apparition in the tree that day was a manifestation of the Almighty's censure for the blasphemy and pride inherent in his function. To simulate gravity, feign grief and pretend supernatural intelligence of the hereafter in so fearsome and arcane a circumstance as death seemed the most criminal of offenses. (279)

As the last quotation indicates, the chaplain never wholly loses faith in God but only in the man-made idol, and when the time comes, he is given a new revelation. The chaplain has rejected the stage-miracles of religious tradition, but he discovers that there is a different kind of miracle. When news of Orr's safe arrival in Sweden reaches Pianosa, he exclaims: "It's a miracle, I tell you! A miracle! I believe in God again" (458). Orr's escape has a quite obvious religious significance, for seen in a theological context, his crash-landing in the Adriatic is a symbolic baptism and the sudden news of his safety gives the whole episode the quality of resurrection following death--a miraculous reversal of the seemingly irrevocable catastrophe.

Orr is an important figure but remains enigmatic up to the last chapter of the novel. To Yossarian he seems a comic figure, a sucker, the prototypal victim of all the forms of exploitation that Yossarian himself protests against. To him Orr is "a freakish, likeable dwarf with . . . a thousand valuable skills that would keep him in a low income group all his life," and he is convinced that Orr needs to be shielded "against animosity and deceit, against people with ambition and the embittered snobbery of the big shot's wife, against the squalid, corrupting indignities of the profit motive and the friendly neighbourhood butcher with inferior meat" (321). Yossarian is wrong, of course, because, though seeing the qualities that lie behind Orr's apparent innocence, he does not understand their value. Orr is self-reliant ("a thousand valuable skills"), patient, enduring ("oblivious to fatigue"), and adaptable ("not afraid . . . of foods like scrod or tripe"). Above all, Orr is a doer rather than a contemplative like the chaplain, and he is admirably equipped to survive. The imagery identifies Orr closely with the natural world--he is "a gnome," "a dwarf," "as oblivious to fatigue as the stump of a tree" and has "an uncanny knowledge of wildlife" (321-2). He may be seen as a mischievous and resilient earth-spirit like Puck or as the true embodiment of the seemingly naive but really shrewd and self-reliant archetypal Yankee farmer, of whom Major Major's father is a ludicrous parody. In any case, Orr is the personification of the qualities of intelligence and endurance which make possible the survival of humanity under the worst conditions of oppression and exploitation. While the chaplain engages in futile efforts to reason with Colonel Cathcart, while Yossarian carries on a futile and dangerous revolt, Orr quietly practises the skills that will ensure his survival. Only after Orr has acted can Yossarian grasp the possibility of escape that was and still is open to him, and then he realizes that he must imitate Orr in being "as wise as serpents and harmless as doves:"

"Bring me apples, Danby, and chestnuts too. Run, Danby, run. Bring me crab apples and horse chesnuts before it's too late, and get some for yourself." "Horse chestnuts? Crab apples? What in the world for?" "To pop into our cheeks, of course." Yossarian threw his arms up into the air in a gesture of mighty and despairing self-recrimination. "Oh, why didn't I listen to him? Why wouldn't I have some faith?" (459)

Throughout the novel, Yossarian, for all the verbal energy displayed in his revolt, has been paralyzed by his moral quandary. In the Snowden episode he was an impotent good Samaritan, and in the chapter, "The Eternal City," he was a Pharisee walking past terrible spectacles of human misery and not daring to aid the victims; only now, with the example of Orr before him, can he perform a positive moral action. The forgiveness of sins promised in baptism has important consequences not only on the eternal level but also on the temporal level in that the consciousness of divine forgiveness can break the neurotic paralysis of the will induced by the fear of sinning. Thus the baptismal symbolism of Orr's escape indicates that Orr's qualities, including his all too human shrewdness, are forgiven, sanctified, and employed in a miracle that has redemptive value for Yossarian and the chaplain. Yossarian then realizes that he must follow Orr--even though it involves him in the sin of withdrawing his resistance to Nazism--because it will help no one if he is put in prison on false charges. The moral effects of Yossarian's action are admittedly almost insignificant; he may be able to help Nately's whore's kid sister, and he will be able to embarrass Cathcart and Korn. Yet this is the only morally valid possibility for Yossarian and he must not shrink from it either to accept the odious deal or to help the exploiters by submitting to martyrdom. However, Heller makes clear that Orr's course of action is not necessarily the proper one for everyone. The chaplain, though similarly freed from his moral paralysis by Orr, does not face the same dangers as Yossarian; while endorsing Yossarian's decision to flee, he realizes that he can and ought to continue the struggle on Pianosa: "If Orr could row to Sweden, then I can triumph over Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn, if only I persevere" (461).

This is the God of Catch-22. He does not help out men with stage-tricks, but to the man who is willing to act for the sake of righteousness He promises that evil will not ultimately prevail against good. From this theological perspective we can see an explanation for a problem that has troubled several critics--the discontinuity of the last chapter with the rest of the novel. The reason is that nature and grace are discontinuous, as are human wisdom and faith. In the last chapter of the novel Yossarian and the chaplain discard their vision of the pagan universe of the epic for the Christian faith in a God of salvation: "There is hope, after all . . . Even Clevinger might be alive somewhere in that cloud of his, hiding inside until it's safe to come out" (459).

Just as important as the promise that justice shall prevail is the promise of forgiveness for the sins committed in a sincere pursuit of righteousness. And that is how the novel ends. Yossarian sins in acting morally. He decides as a free and responsible man to resist the exploitation of himself and others in the only way left open to him--by fleeing from it even though the very exploiters do have a valid claim on his conscience. Danby points out the sinful quality of the action and warns Yossarian: "Your conscience will never let you rest" (462). To which Yossarian replies: "God bless it. . . . I wouldn't want to live without strong misgivings" (462). In symbolic terms the last paragraph of the novel reinforces the theme of forgiveness for responsible action with the appearance of Nately's whore, the embodiment of Yossaian's accusing conscience:

Yossarian jumped. Nately's whore was hiding just outside the door. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off. (463)

Yossarian can sin in his pursuit of the kingdom of heaven because he is simul iustus et peccator.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA