Chapter 25: The Chaplain

1. Chapter 25: The Chaplain William Qu Dan Urbanek Tori Lee

2. Chapter Structure: Inter-Chapter • Chapter 24: Snowden’s funeral after he was killed at Avignon • Yossarian sits naked in the tree

3. Chapter Structure: Outline • The chaplain feels like an outcast in the army • Begins to doubt his faith • Extremely low confidence • Soldier in white is found to be dead • The chaplain has an encounter with déjà vu • Believes he saw Yossarian once before they met in the hospital… • Knows in the back of his mind that Yossarian was the naked man in the tree at Snowden’s funeral, but doubts his “spiritual vision” • Yossarian and the chaplain discuss déjà vu • Time shift Colonel Cathcart tries to kick the chaplain out of the officers’ club; General Dreedle stops him. • Theme portrayed by shift: The chaplain belongs in the army, but at the same time is clearly out of place. • Faith is important during war, but the two don’t coexist in harmony

4. Chapter Outline: II • Chaplain Albert Taylor Tappman wants to be treated like a normal person • The chaplain worries incessantly for the health and safety of his wife and children • Made a fool when he visits Major Major’s office to find out if Cathcart’s group is the only one required to fly more missions • Major Major was actually searching for the chaplain at the same time • The chaplain talks at his tent with Corporal(Now Sergeant) Whitcomb about the number of missions. 55 required at this point. • Later, he meets Flume, who is afraid that Chief White Halfoat will kill him, so he lives in the woods

5. Chapter Outline: III • Whitcomb makes fun of Cathcart’s plot to get into The Saturday Evening Post • Cathcart and the chaplain talk about the condolence letters • Cathcart says he will volunteer the squadron for Avignon again in order to “get some casualties” and get in The Saturday Evening Post • Time shift Back to the officers’ club when the chaplain almost gets thrown out • Dreedle hypocritically changes his mind a few nights later and kicks the chaplain out of the officers’ club because he’s sick of seeing the chaplain • Theme: According to the military officers, there is no use for a chaplain in war. It was inevitable that they would reject him amidst the chaos and immorality in Pianosa

6. Chapter Structure: Inter-Chapter • Chapter 26: Chaos and immorality elaborated on through Aarfy’s actions (or lack thereof) • The chaplain would continue to have no influence on the outcome of events, no matter how much he wants to help

7. Satire and Style • Situational irony: • The chaplain questions, “Was there a God? Being an Anabaptist minister in the American Army was difficult enough; without dogma, it was almost intolerable” (267). • Shallow relationship between chaplain and wife (271) • “The chaplain was sincerely a very helpful person who was never able to help anyone” (272). • Overall army’s loss of respect of the chaplain, who generally is supposed to be an important religious figure. Is this self-brought? • Juxtaposition: • “He felt helpless and alone… He was a stranger… Actually, the chaplain was almost good-looking, with a pleasant, sensitive face as pale and brittle as sandstone” (267). • “It was either an insight of divine origin or a hallucination; he was either blessed or losing his mind” (268).

8. Satire and Style (cont.) Chaplain, the overthinker: • Thought experiments infused with rhetorical questions: • “Why couldn’t anybody understand that he was not really a freak but [a normal adult]? If they pricked him, didn’t he bleed?” (270). • Incredibly dark images: • Family nightmares: Ewing’s tumor, leukemia, electrocution, fires, car accidents (271) • Overall extreme attention to detail (dreams, thoughts, etc.) • The chaplain could “see almost the exact number of enlisted men, and almost the exact places in which they had stood, see the four unmoving men with spades…” (272).

9. Satire and Style (cont.) • Unconventional hyperbole: brutality and irrationality of war • “I (Plume) just want to find out if Chief White Halfoat died of pneumonia yet.” • “I have to live in the wood because… Chief White Halfoat swore he was going to cut my throat” (277). • “I (Colonel Cathcart) want you and Corporal Whitcomb to a letter of condolence for me to the next kin of every man in the group who’s killed” (280). • Catch-22 • The staff sergeant “informed him graciously that he could go right in, since Major Major was out” (273). • Enhanced with situational irony: Corporal Whitcomb tells the chaplain, “You had a visitor while you were gone. Major Major” (275). • Plume is unable to avoid Chief White Halfoat. “Major Major said he would cut my throat if I ever spoke to him again” (277).

10. Satire and Style (cont.) • Light humor in dialogue: satirizes the loss of identity • Colonel Cathcart and chaplain over Corporal/Sergeant Whitcomb’s title (280-281) • Colonel Cathcart and General Dreedle over chaplain’s position (284-285) • Circular ending (juxtaposition?) • Begins and ends with chaplain questioning his faith; however, ends slightly differently on a possibly positive note

11. Foreshadowing and Déjà Vu • Déjà vu: bringing science to the seemingly unrelated subject of emotions and dreams • “Déjà vu was just a momentary infinitesimal lag in the operation of two coactive sensory nerve centers that commonly functioned simultaneously” (268). • Chaplain is more spiritual. Foil characters?\ • Avignon: Cathcart plans on volunteering his squadron for a second run • “The soon we get some casualties, the sooner we can make some progress on this period… I’d like to get in the Christmas issue if we can.” • Foreshadows that the next run at Avignon will be brutally violent. • Chaplains revival? • “The chaplain… would have yielded to reason and relinquished his belief in [God]… had it not been for such successive mystic phenomena as the naked man in the tree.” • The chaplain does completely lose his faith (foreshadowing) and reappears later in the book.

12. Foreshadowing and Déjà Vu (cont.) • Washington Irving letters • No organization;, lack of effectiveness of government. • The chaplain and the officers club • Major Major wants him kicked out the first time, General Dreedle defends him • General Dreedle kicks him out the second time, Major Major tries to defend • Déjà vu shows the lack of order in war, even when on the same side.

13. Themes • The absurdities/ironies of war • A chaplain who questions the existence of God • Paranoia that comes along with war • Chaplain's nightmares and Flume's fear  • An uncaring and disorganized bureaucracy