Clevinger

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Clevinger is also the surname of author and Internet personality Brian Clevinger, as well as a brand of electric double bass.

Clevinger is a character in Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22 and is the title for Chapter 2. He shares a tent with the pilot McWatt.

[edit] Chapter 2: Clevinger

The first line in the Chapter on Clevinger reads "Clevinger was dead. That was the basic flaw in his philosophy" The point being that being good, honest, clever, sincerely dedicated to the stated aims of the organisation, almost guarantees the organisation will hate you and try to destroy you.

Clevinger is a highly principled, highly educated man and acts as Yossarian's foil within the story. He has a completely naïve and optimistic view of the world causing Yossarian to consider him to be a "dope," and both he and Yossarian believe the other is crazy. Clevinger is one of the most, if not the most, down-to-earth characters within the story, separating him out from the surrounding hubbub and hypocrisy. In fact, Clevinger's down-to-earth attitude makes him appear even crazier than the other characters when he disagrees with Yossarian; for example, Clevinger disagrees vehemently with Yossarian about the fact that everyone is trying to kill Yossarian. This is a fact that the reader is already in agreement with Yossarian about, so Clevinger's more realistic (and truer) views seem improbable and crazy to the reader.

[edit] Cadet Training

During his training he is put on trial for what appears to be nothing more than stumbling while at attention. He is tried principally by Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who acts as prosecutor, defense lawyer, and one of the three judges. There are no formal charges against him, other than the suspicion by Scheisskopf that he is "smart," and therefore troublesome. Charges are added during the course of the trial for trivial offenses such as not saying "Sir" to an officer while not speaking. The trial is a typical example of Heller's depictions of absurd bureaucracies. For example, he is grilled as to the exact timing of when he did not tell Yossarian about his thoughts on the trial.

[edit] Pianosa

Despite these experiences on Pianosa, Clevinger still exhibits a complete lack of cynicism or realism. He refuses to accept Yossarian's theory that "everybody is trying to kill him:"

"They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.

"No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.

"Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.

"They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."

"And what difference does that make?"

During a mission Clevinger vanishes with his plane into a cloud and his whereabouts are never discovered, although Yossarian believes it is possible that Clevinger decided to save himself and go AWOL. Clevinger continually displays an attitude of cheerful optimism and indifference to the harsh realities of living under the control of a bureaucracy. Ironically, the "system" and its supporters [e.g. Scheisskopf and even the natural environment itself (the cloud)] conspire to hurt him as much as possible.