PLOT - During the second half of World War II, a soldier named Yossarian is stationed with his Air Force

squadron on the island of Pianosa, near the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Yossarian and his friends

endure a nightmarish, absurd existence defined by bureaucracy and violence: they are inhuman resources in

the eyes of their blindly ambitious superior officers. The squadron is thrown thoughtlessly into brutal combat

situations and bombing runs in which it is more important for the squadron members to capture good aerial

photographs of explosions than to destroy their targets. Their colonels continually raise the number of missions

that they are required to fly before being sent home, so that no one is ever sent home. Still, no one but

Yossarian seems to realize that there is a war going on; everyone thinks he is crazy when he insists that

millions of people are trying to kill him.

Yossarian’s story forms the core of the novel, so most events are told from his point of view. Yossarian takes

the whole war personally: unaffected by national ideals or abstract principles, Yossarian is furious that his life

is in constant danger although he has no fault. He has a strong desire to live and is determined to have a long

life. As a result, he spends a great deal of his time in the hospital, faking various illnesses in order to avoid the

war. As the novel progresses through a series of recurring stories and anecdotes, Yossarian is continually

troubled by his memory of Snowden, a soldier who died in his arms on a mission when Yossarian lost all

desire to participate in the war. Yossarian is placed in ridiculous, absurd, desperate, and tragic

circumstances—he sees friends die and disappear, his squadron get bombed by its own mess officer (ufficiale

di mensa), and colonels and generals volunteer their men for the most perilous battle in order to enhance their

own reputations.