it never explained in the movie how..*spoiler*
doc daneeka became a zombie? did i miss something? maybe someone who has read the book could help? thanks in advance.
shareDoc Daneeka was constantly adding his name to the crew manifest before a mission in order to get flight pay. He would never actually get in the plane. But when a plane was seen to crash, and he was listed as being on board, he was recorded as "Killed In Action." Yossarian called him a zombie because he was almost literally one of the living dead.
Always remember that YOU are unique. Just like everyone else.
now it all makes sense! thank you so much!
shareRead the book. It's far better.
shareDoc Daneeka's being considered "dead" by everyone, even though he is obviously very much alive after NOT dying in the plane crash with McWatt -- no one "sees," "hears," or talks to him after the crash -- is one of CATCH-22's many surreal, black comic situations, in both the book and the film.
Doc had been fraudulently signing onto flight manifests so he could collect his additional "flight pay" without having to actually go up in a plane, so when McWatt commits suicide by crashing his plane into the mountain after cutting Hungry Joe in two, everyone mindlessly accepts Doc's demise, even though he is standing and talking right in front of them.
The refusal to see and hear the obviously alive Doc Daneeka by the group eventually turns him into a sad, lonely and haunted "zombie," due to a lack of human contact, which speaks both to the human flaw of a mass-acceptance of a false premise (Doc's "death" in the crash) and, perhaps more poignantly, to the deconstruction and dismissal of an individual's very existence (or worth) by the group's total disregard.
It also speaks to the overall theme of bureaucracy and lack of common sense in the military. He is dead because the paperwork says he is dead. If he is dead on paper then he is dead, no matter how alive and present he is.
http://imdb.com/name/nm1265863/
rmilymz - Yours is an astute observation
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It is now and you are here. All else is merely a belief.