Social Climbing
Aarfy throughout the novel tries to befriend Nately, as a means of getting in favor with his wealthy father:
- "he had already fallen truly in love with Nately's father and the prospect of working for him after the war in some executive capacity as a reward for befriending Nately."
The irony is that Nately actually sees his friends as Yossarian, Orr, Hungry Joe and Dunbar whom his parents would not be impressed with, but equally his parents would not like Aarfy whom they would see as a “climber”.
The girls upstairs and the cameo woman – protects them from the sexual advances of the officers, not for his own pleasure, but because he sees them as women connected to important men who could help him out after the war.
Read more about this topic: Captain Aardvark, Biographical Summary, Actions in "Catch-22"
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or climbing:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Flee from the press and dwell with soothfastness;
Suffice unto thy good though it be small,
For hoard hath hate and climbing ticklishness,
Press hath envy and weal blent overall;”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)