How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #21
"You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country!" he declared.
Nately was instantly up in arms again. "There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!" he declared.
"Isn't there?" asked the old man. "What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for." (23.54-56)
The old man makes patriotism seem absurd by reducing the definition of a country to a purely geographical essence. And he further ridicules the concept of nationhood by pointing out how arbitrary countries' borders are. Thus, he makes it seem like soldiers from each country fight only for a random piece of land. This renders the concept of war absurd.
Quote #22
He remembered very distinctly – or was under the impression he remembered very distinctly – his feeling that he had met Yossarian somewhere before the first time he had met Yossarian lying in bed in the hospital. He remembered experiencing the same disquieting sensation almost two weeks later when Yossarian appeared at his tent to ask to be taken off combat duty. By that time, of course, the chaplain had met Yossarian somewhere before, in that odd, unorthodox ward in which every patient seemed delinquent but the unfortunate patient covered from head to toe in white bandages and plaster who was found dead one day with a thermometer in his mouth. But the chaplain's impression of a prior meeting was of some occasion far more momentous and occult than that, of a significant encounter with Yossarian in some remote, submerged, and perhaps even entirely spiritual epoch in which he had made the identical, foredooming admission that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to help him. (25.4)
The chaplain has an episode of déjà vu when he meets Yossarian in the hospital ward for the first time. He doesn't know it, but he has seen Yossarian naked before in a tree at Snowden's funeral. So the chaplain's feeling of surrealism is based on fact. Also, towards the end of the passage, the chaplain's identity starts to merge with that of Major Major, who refused Yossarian help in being taken off duty.
Quote #23
There was no mistaking the awesome implications of the chaplain's revelation: it was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind. Both prospects fill him with equal fear and depression. (25.6)
The chaplain interprets his "vision" of a naked man in a tree during Snowden's funeral as either heavenly and supernatural, or the product of a delusional mind. He narrows the possibilities down to just those two, which creates only two possible worlds – the divine and the mad.
Quote #24
[Major Sanderson:] "You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you're at war and might get your head blown off any second."
"I more than resent it, sir. I'm absolutely incensed."
"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."
"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."
"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Slums depress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"…
"Then you admit you're crazy, do you?" (27.144-152)
The psychiatrist's logic is flawed. He names things commonly accepted as negative in society like death, bullies, misery, violence, and corruption, and sees Yossarian as mad for not accepting them.
Quote #25
Yossarian answered in a collapsing voice, weary suddenly of shouting so much, of the whole frustrating, exasperating, ridiculous situation. He was dying and no one took notice. (26.31)
This is an absurd situation because no one, not even his friend Aarfy, acknowledges that Yossarian is dying, much less shows concern. Death is a momentous occasion in the lives of most people and the fact that it is being ignored here is strange, to say the least.
Quote #26
[Nately:] "Prostitution is bad! Everybody knows that, even him." He turned with confidence to experienced old man. "Am I right?"
"You're wrong," answered the old man. "Prostitution gives her an opportunity to meet people. It provides fresh air and wholesome exercise, and it keeps her out of trouble." (33.108-109)
The old man's logic is flawed by traditional moral standards. Americans would argue indignantly that there are better ways to meet people than prostitution, not to mention the legal and health dangers of such activities. Only in the madness of Catch-22 does this old man make sense.
Quote #27
The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character. (34.16)
This is absurd because one cannot imagine vice turning into virtue or any other of these 180-degree transformations. This, we realize, is the beauty of Catch-22: the ability to make the bad sound good and vice versa.
Quote #28
[…] with an air of disillusioned disgust, he tossed down on the table the pad on which the chaplain had signed his name. "This isn't your handwriting." The chaplain blinked rapidly with amazement. "But of course it's my handwriting."
"No it isn't, Chaplain, You're lying again."
"But I just wrote it!" the chaplain cried in exasperation. "You just saw me write it." (36.44-47)
This is absurd because the chaplain just wrote on the paper. It is his handwriting, but the officials refuse to recognize it.
Quote #29
[An old woman:] "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing." (39.21)
The old woman says something that should be common sense, but is made absurd by repeating the obvious.
Quote #30
At the next corner a man was beating a small boy brutally in the midst of an immobile crowd of adult spectators who made no effort to intervene. Yossarian recoiled with sickening recognition. He was certain he had witnessed that same horrible scene sometime before. Déjà vu? The sinister coincidence shook him and filled him with doubt and dread. It was the same scene he had witnessed a block before, although everything in it seemed quite different. (39.81)
Yossarian experiences déjà vu, a sort of dream-like atmosphere. Then he realizes why: he has seen a tragically similar scene just a street earlier.