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in our world? Here Yossarian and Lt. Scheisskopf's wife argue in what is a parody of the classic theological debates on this subject (Augustine, City of God; C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain; or Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov). This argument, through another language game, raises the question of what really constitutes belief and disbelief: the reader might well try to sort out the logical implications of not believing in a good God (Lt. Scheisskopf's wife) and not believing in a bad God (Yossarian). |
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This chapter does not resolve this debate. Once again, instead, it provides us with the context within which the debate is to be understood. And, once again, the subject of that subsequent episode — the visit to Yossarian by Giuseppe's family — is death. (By continuing to insist on seeing things in the face of the fact of death, the novel can be viewed as existential. In the doctor's insistence that "We're all dying," we have an explicit rejection of the "mission against mortality"; and, in his comment upon illusions, there is a suggestion that, perhaps, we not only don't see things twice, but really don't see things at all, at least not as they are. As evidence, we have the visit in which a family apparently can't distinguish a stranger from their own son. |
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But, at this point, it is possible the reader will be caught in the illusion. "What difference does it make," asks Giuseppe's mother. "He's dying." |
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This chapter centers around Col. Cathcart's play to make publicity and, in consequence, to become a general. On one level it is a study in ambition and the lengths to which ambition can lead, and thus we see a colonel "who calculated day and night in the service of himself." He is a fine example of the observation that a man without character must have a method. His only interest is himself. He adds one more dimension to the novel's study of what happens when self-concern is paramount. And paradoxically this leaves him at the mercy of everyone's opinion of him. Just as Yossarian is beginning to see himself in others' eyes, so Col. Cathcart can see in no other way. |
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The novel credits this inability (and the subsequent anxiety about "feathers in his cap" and "black eyes") to his being "impervious to absolutes." As an example of this we are given the episode with Col. Cathcart and the chaplain where we see him using religion for his own ends, and his abuse here is a satire on the prevalent forms of using religion in a self-serving manner. |
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First there is a satire of a religion which offers only comfort (here, a tight bomb pattern) without demands. Secondly, we see a satire on a religion as a civic or social prop (atheism and un-American activity). And, third, we see a satire on a religion used as a matter of social status (the question of |
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