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23-NOV-2025 | Excerpt from “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

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Dan Bogachek
November 23, 2025

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Excerpt from “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller

It was love at first sight.

The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

Yossarian was in the hospital with a pain in his liver that fell just short of being jaundice. The doctors were puzzled by the fact that it wasn’t quite jaundice. If it became jaundice they could treat it. If it didn’t become jaundice and went away they could discharge him. But this just being short of jaundice all the time confused them.

Each morning they came around, three brisk and serious men with efficient mouths and inefficient eyes, accompanied by brisk and serious Nurse Duckett, one of the ward nurses who didn’t like Yossarian. They read the chart at the foot of the bed and asked impatiently about the pain. They seemed irritated when he told them it was exactly the same. 🏁

  • Interesting use of third person here. Because if you simply replace every instance of “Yossarian” and “he” with “I,” it has the exact same vibe. It feels like first person tone & observations but with 3rd person narration — the narrator sees right into Yossarian’s head.

  • Repetition throughout, especially with “jaundice.” And with the symmetry on “brisk and serious”, “efficient… inefficient.” Funny, and it paints the characters with similarities and contrast. Like painting with “light” and “dark”, but with these specific character traits they share.