Slide1-SolonCitySchools.pptVIP

Chapter 15“Piltchard and Wren” Or . . . The Bombastic Bombardier Balks at Bombing Bologna Structure Inter-chapter connections: chronological Heller keeps the time frame to illustrate the protracted impact of one mission. Ch 14 ends as we learn that Bologna was “a milk run”(144). Ch15 opens w/Captains Piltchard and Wren who contrast Y in their love of combat. It is they who announce the second Bologna bomb run. Chapter 15 moves directly into chapter 16 chronologically to illustrate Y’s need (and the other airmen’s need) to escape the maelstrom of battle through the debauchery of Rome. Yossarian takes his leave “in Rome, where he found Luciana and her invisible scar that same night” (152) “He found her sitting alone at a table in the Allied officer’s night club . . .” (153). Intra-chapter connections: mostly chronological After a transition explaining the 2nd run to Bologna, Heller drops us into the plane mid-mission: “[S]uddenly they were shooting the living s*** out of him. Heavy flak was everywhere!” (146). The rest of the chapter is a meticulously drawn out and harried depiction of the perilous bomb run. Analysis to follow. Satire Heller uses very little satire or even humor in this chapter. Offers a sharp contrast to broader humor and farce of earlier scenes, but maintains the almost surreal intensity. We are pre-Avignon – Yoss still takes the job (or his personal safety) seriously enough to work quickly and get out alive. Heller juxtaposes the “grinding howl of the engines,” the vast churning wave . . . of coal-black smoke” from the bombed out ammunitions dump, and the “crunching, thudding, voluminous barrage of bursting anti-aircraft missiles” with Aarfy’s fatuous, maddeningly sanguine demeanor. As a “large chunk of flak rip[s] up from the floor through Aarfy’s colossal jumble of maps and . . . inches away from their heads,” Heller presents “Aarfy’s joy [as] sublime.” While Aarfy may offer some comic relief, Y’s reaction to him is m