When Yossarian is not hiding in the hospital, he seeks refuge in Rome, the Eternal City. Much of his time in Rome is spent seeking women. Yossarian’s relationships with women are assuredly less than heroic. He claims to fall in love with every bed partner, but his devotion is short-lived. Luciana, the girl with the invisible scar whom he meets at a club in Rome, is the most romanticized of his lovers. She is an earthy, exuberant, delightfully cryptic young woman with a sense of humor and some class. Naturally, Yossarian rejects her soon after they make love; they part, and he tears up her address with false bravado. Yossarian regrets it but not enough to keep him from rutting with someone else within twenty-four hours. His fidelity to Nurse Duckett is no more devout. On one trip to Rome, he misses her so much that he goes searching through the streets for other women and has meaningless sex with “a thin streetwalker with a wet cough” and a chubby stranger he finds in his apartment.
Yossarian’s struggle with personal integrity is the result of Colonel Korn’s offer of a discharge under certain conditions. After Cathcart has raised the required number of missions once too often, Yossarian refuses to take part in any more combat flights. He goes AWOL to Rome, is arrested, and is returned to Colonel Cathcart’s office where Korn presents him with the option of returning home if only Yossarian will become a team player and support his commanding officers: “Be our pal,” says Korn. “Say nice things about us here and back in the States.” Yossarian selfishly accepts the deal even though he knows that he is betraying the other airmen: “If they don’t want to fly more missions, let them stand up and do something about it the way I did. Right?” Colonel Korn, of course, concurs. But Yossarian is forced to reconsider.
After Nately’s whore severely wounds Yossarian as he exits Cathcart’s office, the captain is once more in the hospital. While there, he believes that he sees a strange figure who says to him, “We’ve got your pal, buddy. We’ve got your pal.” Yossarian reflects on all of his pals who have been killed or who have disappeared during the war. He has a change of heart. When Chaplain Tappman reports that Yossarian’s former tent mate, Orr, survived his crash in the sea and escaped to Sweden, Yossarian decides to join him. He will first go to Rome and find Nately’s girlfriend’s kid sister; together, they will somehow flee to Sweden.
Yossarian has changed—grown—during the course of the novel, but he is still an antihero. If anything, he has grown to hate war and clichés involving “heroism” even more than he did initially. He has grown brave enough to admit that he is a “coward” in military terms. He doesn’t care about medals or honor or glory. Yossarian just wants to live his life, make a separate peace, and maybe help one lost kid to have a life also. Although he could have accepted the easy road home, Yossarian feels that he would have lost himself if he had gone along with the establishment. The way to find himself is to escape the control of people like Cathcart and Korn: “I’m not running away from my responsibilities,” he says, as he is about to flee the hospital. “I’m running to them.” Dodging one last assassination attempt by Nately’s whore, Yossarian takes off for Rome and a new life.
