All 13 Uses of
despair
in
Catch-22
- He was a short-legged, wide-shouldered, smiling young soul who whistled bouncy show tunes continuously and turned over cards with sharp snaps when he dealt at blackjack or poker until Hungry Joe disintegrated into quaking despair finally beneath their cumulative impact and began ranting at him to stop snapping the cards.†
Chpt 7 (definition 3)
- It was the despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf's life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged.
Chpt 8 (definition 1) *despair = something that causes hopelessness or distress
- No matter how many times he signed one, it always came back for still another signature, and he began to despair of ever being free of any of them.
Chpt 9 (definition 2) *despair = lose hope
- He was a valorous opportunist who pounced hoggishly upon every opportunity Colonel Korn discovered for him and trembled in damp despair immediately afterward at the possible consequences he might suffer.†
Chpt 19 (definition 3)
- The chaplain sagged limply beneath the mountainous weight of his despair.
Chpt 20 (definition 3) *despair = feeling of hopelessness or distress
- He sat gazing in clammy want at her full red lips and dimpled cheeks as he listened to Major Danby describe in a monotonous, didactic male drone the heavy concentrations of flak awaiting them at Avignon, and he moaned in deep despair suddenly at the thought that he might never see again this lovely woman to whom he had never spoken a word and whom he now loved so pathetically.†
Chpt 21 (definition 3)
- He wanted to pour out to her in torrents of self-pity all his unbearable loneliness and despair and warn her never to leave the boric acid or the aspirin in reach of the children or to cross a street against the traffic light.
Chpt 25 (definition 3)despair = feelings of hopelessness or distress
- …was two months later after the chaplain had tried to persuade Colonel Cathcart to rescind his order increasing the number of missions to sixty and had failed abysmally in that endeavor too, and the chaplain was ready now to capitulate to despair entirely but was restrained by the memory of his wife, whom he loved and missed so pathetically with such sensual and exalted ardor, and by the lifelong trust he had placed in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient,…†
Chpt 25 (definition 3)
- Yossarian exclaimed in despair.†
Chpt 30 (definition 3)
- Despair gnawed at him.†
Chpt 33 (definition 3)
- He spied Yossarian finally with a feeling of immense joy, and then his mouth gaped open slowly in unbearable horror as he noted Yossarian's vivid, beaten, grimy look of deep, drugged despair.†
Chpt 36 (definition 3)
- Yossarian was limp with exhaustion, pain and despair when he finished.†
Chpt 41 (definition 3)
- Yossarian threw his arms up into the air in a gesture of mighty and despairing selfrecrimination.†
Chpt 42 (definition 3)
Definitions:
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(1) (despair as in: she was the despair of the team) something that causes hopelessness or great distress
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(2) (despair as in: do not despair) lose hope or feel distress
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(3) (despair as in: she felt despair) hopelessness; or distress (such as extreme worry or sadness from feeling powerless to change a bad situation)