Catch 22 Milo Minderbinder

Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 published in 1961 is about a bombardier in World War II named John Yossarian and his quest to evade the ludicrous amount of missions he is being forced to fly. In Catch-22 there are over forty characters that have significant roles excluding Yossarian. Out of all of these characters Milo Minderbinder plays the most significant role in this classic novel. Milo is Yossarian’s mess officer who his obsessed with buying and selling for a profit, he also seems to have no allegiance to anyone or anything. In the novel Milo creates a syndicate which spirals out of control leading to several important events critical to the novel. If Milo was eradicated from the text it would considerably take away from the book as a whole.

Yossarian first meets Milo when Yossarian receives a letter from Doc Daneeka that entitled him to all the fruits and fruit juices he wants because of his liver condition. Milo becomes fascinated with the letter and he tries to persuade Yossarian to become partners with him so they could sell fruit for profit. Milo tells Yossarian about the organization that he is trying to form “The syndicate I’d like to form someday so that I can give you men the good food you deserve” (Heller 66). Initially Milo does just that with his syndicate he gets permission from Major __ De Coverley to use planes to get fresh eggs from Malta and retrieve other goods for the squadron while making a profit at the same time. In time Milo’s small syndicate becomes a major company in the world M & M enterprises.

The M & M in M & M enterprises stands for Milo & Minderbinder the & is used to dispel any thought that M & M enterprises is an owned or run by one man. As a result of M & M enterprises Milo becomes a prominent world figure and he claims to be mayor of Palermo, the assistant governor-general of Malta, the vice-shah of Oran, and the caliph of Baghdad. For the good of M & M enterprises Milo starts taking essential items like the CO2 cartridges in the emergency life vests and the morphine in first aid kits. Milo then replaces the missing items with letters that contain M & M enterprises motto “What’s good for M & M enterprises is good for the country. Milo Minderbinder” (Heller 436). This refers to Milo’s original theory of the syndicate that everyone has a share and what is good for the syndicate is god for everybody.

Milo and M & M enterprises dealt with all countries including the Germans and it was not long before he was contracted by the Germans to defend a highway bridge at Orvieto although the Americans also contracted to bomb that same bridge. Milo was able to make a huge profit however the dead man in Yossarian’s tent Mudd happened to be killed on that mission. Yossarian accuses Milo of killing Mudd and Milo defends himself by stating “But I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even there, I tell you. I was in Barcelona buying olive and skinless and boneless sardines, and I’ve got the purchase orders to prove it. And I didn’t get the thousand dollars. That thousand dollars went to the syndicate, and everybody got a share even you” (Heller255-256). Milo uses the fact that he wasn’t actually at the Orvieto at the time of Mudd’s death and that the thousand dollar profit he made went to the syndicate and not him to defend his innocence.

M & M enterprises begins to falter when Milo makes a foolish decision to buy the whole Egyptian cotton market. Milo admits to Yossarian his regrets about