Diction

• “And Colonel Cathcart roared off as abruptly as he'd come, whipping the jeep around with a vicious spinning of wheels that sent a spray of fine grit blowing into Major Major's face. Major Major was immobilized by the news. He stood speechless, lanky and gawking, with a scuffed basketball in his long hands as the seeds of rancor sown so swiftly by Colonel Cathcart took root in the soldiers around him who had been playing basketball with him and who had let him come as close to making friends with them as anyone had let him come before. The whites of his eyes grew large and misty as his mouth struggled yearningly and lost against the familiar, impregnable loneliness drifting in and around him again like a suffocating fog.” (57) Before Colonel Cathcart had left he had promoted Major Major to squadron commander, which had no responsibilities or privileges and was only a title, who was left devastated at the news. This is one of the few completely serious portions of Catch-22 and sets a somber mood. Major Major had always had difficulty making friends as his name had brought him much harassment. Unfortunately, just as he had begun to make friends, he was promoted and left alone once again. The diction describing his sadness, like a suffocating fog of loneliness, and the diction revolving around the Colonel, very aggressive and cruel, give the same mood that a child having his dreams crushed would bring. The feeling of Major Major as a child is emphasized by his description as lanky and the scuffed basketball in his hand, a toy, as well as his “misty” eyes makes him seem very vulnerable and reveals the authors tone of pity towards him.
• “There was no hope left. By the middle of the second week, everyone in the squadron began to look like Hungry Joe, who was not scheduled to fly and screamed horribly in his sleep. He was the only one who could sleep. All night long, men moved through the darkness outside their tents like tongueless wraiths with cigarettes. In the day-time they stared at the bomb line in futile, drooping clusters or at the still figure of Doc Daneeka sitting in front of the medical tent beneath the morbid hand-lettered sign.” (124) The diction in this passage emphasizes the hopeless mood around camp when the squadron had to fly a bombing mission in Bologna and very few believed it would be successful. Describing the soldiers in such lifeless terms such as wraiths or futile and drooping. This even further establishes a hopeless and dreary mood.