Because of his liver problems, Yossarian receives as much fruit and juice as he wants from the kitchen. However, Yossarian never eats his fruits as he does not want his liver to get better. You see, if his liver were to be healthy, he wouldn't be obtaining such interesting benefits. So instead of eating the fruit, he gives it away to the other men.
This chapter made me question the definition of possession. When the doctor wrote the letter that allowed Yossarian all the free fruit he wanted, I'm sure the doctor's intentions were that Yossarian would eat the fruit and eventually heal his liver disease. What would the doctor say if he knew Yossarian wasn't really eating the fruit? Yossarian argues that once the fruit is his, he can do whatever he wants with it.
This story seems ridiculous. If I were to do this in my everyday life, I'm sure that a) someone would discover what I had been doing and force me to eat the fruit, and b) take away my free fruit privileges. Why isn't this happening to Yossarian? He's very open about the fact that he's not actually eating his fruit. He leaves the box outside on his front steps for anyone to come over and help themselves. What's more obvious than that? I suppose it all comes back to the central idea of this book: that everyone and everything about the war is crazy. The rules are crazy, the logic is crazy, the people are all crazy. I think I can count at least fifteen times in each chapter where they use the word "crazy".
However, I continue to thoroughly enjoy the book.
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3 comments:
That's kind of funny. Kind of a catch-22 right? He has a disease, gets free fruit and wants to keep getting the free fruit, but because he gets it by having the disease, he doesn't ingest it himself. I don't know what to say about that. A little sad, actually...
It is obvious from even just this one story that Catch-22 is a very funny parody on military beuacracy. In the real world the doctor would oubviously hear about the fruit and stop the situation, but his ignorance of it is what contributes to the humor.
I really like your post Elizabeth, it made me truly think about the meaning of privilege. It's funny, the kind of oblivious confidence that we place in people sometimes. It's also sad, like Athena said, how this poor man is ruining his chances to live a healthy life so that he can continue to get the special privileges his society grants to the sick.
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