A former fraternity man in college, Aarfy proclaims he is too dumb to understand the danger of his combat missions. He is a navigator with a poor sense of direction, and Yossarian is always telling him, while on the plane, to get out of Yossarian’s way; Aarfy pretends not to understand. Aarfy ends up raping and murdering a woman in Rome, much to Yossarian’s horror, but is confident he will not be prosecuted for his crimes, and is correct in that belief.
Aarfy Quotes in Catch-22
The Catch-22 quotes below are all either spoken by Aarfy or refer to Aarfy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 35
Quotes
No, sir . . . it’s generally known that you’ve flown only two missions. And that one of those occurred when Aarfy accidentally flew you over enemy territory while navigating you to Naples for a black-market water cooler.
Related Characters:
Milo Minderbinder (speaker), Aarfy, Colonel Cathcart
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Aarfy Character Timeline in Catch-22
The timeline below shows where the character Aarfy appears in Catch-22. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5: Chief White Halfoat
...target. This nob is connected to the rest of the plane via a crawlway, which Aarfy, another soldier and the plane’s navigator, always seems to block.
(full context)
Yossarian flies with McWatt as co-pilot—the two exchange instructions about the bombing runs while Aarfy, a former “fraternity man” in college who is not very intelligent, smokes a pipe and...
(full context)
Chapter 15: Piltchard & Wren
...evasive maneuvers, and the plane zooms around wildly, finally gaining higher altitude. Yossarian begins begging Aarfy, the ineffective navigator, to stop blocking the plane’s nose, so that Yossarian can escape from...
(full context)
Yossarian continues yelling at Aarfy, but Aarfy does not budge. Yossarian orders more evasive maneuvers to be performed by McWatt....
(full context)
Chapter 16: Luciana
...spend the night with—but finds no one. He returns to the officers’ apartments and finds Aarfy, who had talked to a woman all evening but had not slept with her, since...
(full context)
Chapter 23: Nately’s Old Man
...managed again to find his prostitute, the woman he loves, and he asks Yossarian and Aarfy to pay to spend time with her friends to appease her. Aarfy jokes about pushing...
(full context)
Chapter 26: Aarfy
...wishes even to be in the same room as him. Nately reports this, sadly, to Aarfy and Yossarian, and Aarfy replies, “good riddance.” Nately grows angry and asks that his fellow...
(full context)
Nately believes he will one day marry the prostitute, and Aarfy finds this ridiculous. But he wishes to remain on Nately’s good side, since he knows...
(full context)
Aarfy is the navigator on Yossarian’s plane, but has a terrible sense of direction—he is always...
(full context)
Chapter 39: The Eternal City
...police officers to save him. Yossarian walks faster back to the apartment, where he finds Aarfy, also on leave (it is not said if it’s AWOL or not). Aarfy acknowledges that...
(full context)
Yossarian cannot believe what he has seen throughout the evening, and Aarfy’s confession is the last straw. He tells Aarfy that the police will come for him...
(full context)
...bust into the apartment again and arrest Yossarian for being AWOL. They do nothing to Aarfy, as Aarfy predicted. Yossarian is flown back to Pianosa and taken to Cathcart and Korn,...
(full context)
