Chapter 5
Chapter 5 – Chief White Halfoat
Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian a story about his medical practice before the war. It seems that Daneeka had to explain to a couple of naïve newlyweds what, precisely, they had to do to have children. Then, inexplicably, the husband returned three weeks later and punched the doctor in the face.
At the close of the anecdote, Daneeka’s roommate, an American Indian named Chief White Halfoat joins the two officers. Halfoat hates all “immigrants” by which he means anyone who came to America after the Indians. In his childhood, he claims, the big oil companies always struck oil exactly where he and his family were living; thus they were constantly thrown off their land and forced to move. Eventually, he claims, the companies simply dug wherever his family was headed, throwing them off their land before they even got there.
Yossarian asks Doc Daneeka to ground him due to insanity, and Daneeka responds by explaining the precise meaning of “Catch-22.” If a man is insane, he cannot be permitted to fly. But to be grounded, he must ask the doctor personally. If a man asks to be grounded, it means that he is sane enough to want to save his own life, and therefore not insane, and therefore able to fly. If, however, a man willingly flies, he is disregarding his own safety, and therefore is insane!
Yossarian, dumbfounded by the perfection of the catch, leaves Daneeka and remembers an odd discussion concerning Appleby. Orr, it seems, told Yossarian that Appleby had flies in his eyes. When Yossarian asked why Appleby didn’t know he had flies in his eyes, Orr gave the predictable response: “because he has flies in his eyes.”
Yossarian leaves on a bombing mission, and discusses the fact that his bombardier’s area in a B-52 is cut off from the nearest escape hatch by a narrow crawlspace, a situation which enrages and frightens Yossarian to no end. He tells the story of the disastrous Avignon bombing run, in which Dobbs went crazy in mid-air, causing the death of another airman, Snowden.
