The conversation between Colonel Cathcart and the Chaplain in Chapter 19 of Catch-22 illustrates the theme of bureaucratic mentalities. Colonel Cathcart is the epitome of the bureaucratic mindset. Joseph Heller, the author, emphasizes Colonel Cathcart's selfish motives by presenting him in contrast to the Chaplain, who suffers for others. The episode between Colonel Cathcart and the Chaplain proves that there is always a "catch-22," even for diehard bureaucrats.
Colonel Cathcart is a man blinded by irrational ambition. His desire is to make general, and he plots to accomplish this by calling attention to his own deeds: "He was complacent and insecure, daring in the administrative stratagems he employed to bring himself to the attention of his superiors and craven in his concern that his schemes might all backfire" (197). Colonel Cathcart considers all events in terms of how they reflect on his status. Good events are "feathers in his cap" and the bad are "black eyes." At one point he even writes the "feathers" and "black eyes" in columns, like pros and cons.
Colonel Cathcart becomes the nemesis of bombers like Yossarian, the novel's hero, because the number of missions the pilots must fly is continually raised, bringing many of them to the breaking point. Colonel Cathcart, however, is unmoved by the pressure this load puts on his bomber group. When the generals do not seem impressed by the sixty missions that his group must fly, Colonel Cathcart considers raising the stakes, he "suspect[ed] that perhaps sixty combat missions were not nearly enough and that he ought to increase the number at once to seventy, eighty, a hundred, or even two hundred, three hundred, or six thousand" (224-225). In contrast to Colonel Cathcart, the Chaplain empathizes with the bomber group's stress at flying so many missions.
The catch-22 conversation between Colonel Cathcart and the Chaplain begins when he is summoned into the colonel...