Both Uses of
mortality
in
Catch-22
- …dead one was really unknown, even though his belongings still lay in a tumble on the cot in Yossarian's tent almost exactly as he had left them three months earlier the day he never arrived — all contaminated with death less than two hours later, in the same way that all was contaminated with death in the very next week during the Great Big Siege of Bologna when the moldy odor of mortality hung wet in the air with the sulphurous fog and every man scheduled to fly was already tainted.†
Chpt 10
- Each day he faced was another dangerous mission against mortality.†
Chpt 17 *
Definition:
-
(mortality) the quality of being mortal (subject to death)
or:
death rate -- often given per 1,000 people per year