The Inferno

Minna Dosokow, an author of a particularly interesting article on Catch-22 that I found, compares the “night journey” through the streets of Rome that Yossarian embarks on in the later chapters as analogous to the journeys into the underworld that are characteristic of epic heroes (such as Aeneus and Dante). Being a Dante fiend, realizing that these chapters are fraught with references to The Commedia made me rather giddy. In this section, Yossarian wanders the streets of Rome in search of Nately’s whore after Milo has deserted him to buy smuggled tobacco products. Yossarian is confronted with an array of horrors that become more gruesome and helpless as his journey continues. Like Dante in Inferno, he is not being subjected to the terrors, yet he is not protected from that wrath they incur on his psyche. Dante at least had the comforting words of Virgil “only fear that which has the power to harm” to preserve his sanity throughout the journey. Yossarian is utterly alone and without any semblance of comfort. He is shown desperate poverty, injustice, and helplessness to horrifying degrees.

Yossarian is able to be in Rome because of his unrelenting refusal to fly more missions. At the time he leaves for Rome, his purpose is a selfish one. He wants to go home so that he can be out of harm’s way. However, by the end of the novel, Yossarian begins to chase a new loftier goal of ending the corruption and ethical perversion in the power infrastructure. Dante is shown Hell in order to regain the “straight way” that he lost in the dark forest of his exile and mid-life crises. The Hell that Yossarian sees is the full extent of the abuses of power that the authorities commit. Police beat an innocent man, and ambulance arrests and innocent man, dogs and children are beaten, and the M.P.’s come not for Aarfy who has raped and murdered the only innocent girl in the officers’ residence, but for Yossarian who is in Rome without leave papers. This is the turning point the novel where the authorities are portrayed and not only arbitrary and absurd, but also cruel and immoral. (744)