Setting the tone early, Heller has Yossarian refer to the squadron as the "two to the fighting eighth power." The squadron's assignment is to bomb enemy positions in Italy and eastern France. In the novel, it is fictionally enlarged to include the location of Yossarian's 256th Squadron of the Army Air Forces in World War II. In reality, Pianosa is a tiny island in the Mediterranean, a few miles south of Elba, between mainland Italy and Corsica. The setting of the novel is of special significance. The author uses these first chapters to introduce some of the characters, most notably Yossarian, Chaplain Tappman, the "soldier in white," the Texan, Dunbar, Clevinger, and Appleby. If they are able, hospitalized officers are required to devote a certain amount of time to censoring enlisted men's letters home, a boring task that Yossarian makes more interesting in inventive ways. The doctors suspect that he suffers from jaundice, but because they can't establish that, they treat Yossarian for constipation. Yossarian has a temperature of 101 degrees and complains of liver pains. As the novel opens, its protagonist, Captain John Yossarian, is in the squadron hospital, on the island of Pianosa, during the latter stages of World War II.
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