Huple

Huple is the fifteen-year-old pilot who lied about his age to get into the Army, a boy whose extreme youth and inexperience make him a recurring source of mortal peril for Yossarian. He is the youngest combat pilot in the squadron, a beardless kid whose presence in the cockpit during the first mission to Avignon is directly tied to Snowden's death and Yossarian's subsequent breakdown. Huple lives in a tent with Hungry Joe and his pet cat, and he is a light sleeper who nevertheless claims never to hear Hungry Joe's ear-splitting nightmares. His age is a constant, unsettling fact: he is only fifteen, and his face is callow and vacant, often seen chewing bubble gum. Yossarian, who has no confidence in Huple's piloting, goes to Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren after the first Avignon mission and asks them never to assign him to any plane piloted by Huple, Dobbs, or Orr, a request they deny because it would not be fair to the other men.

Role in the Avignon Disaster and Snowden's Death

Huple is the pilot on the first mission to Avignon, the flight on which Snowden is mortally wounded. During the bomb run, Dobbs, the co-pilot, goes berserk in mid-air and wrests the controls away from Huple without warning, tipping the plane into a heart-stopping, ear-splitting dive that tears Yossarian's earphones loose and hangs him helplessly from the ceiling of the nose by the top of his head. Huple manages to seize the controls back from Dobbs and level the ship out, but only after the plane has plunged back into the dense flak from which they had almost escaped. It is immediately after this chaotic, terrifying maneuver that Snowden's voice breaks in over the intercom, whimpering that he is cold. Yossarian, who has been left dangling and powerless by the loss of control, crawls back to find Snowden dying. The sequence of events — Dobbs's seizure of the controls, Huple's inability to prevent it, and the resulting violent maneuver — creates the conditions in which Snowden's wound is either inflicted or fatally aggravated, and in which Yossarian is rendered helpless to intervene in time. Yossarian holds Huple's youth and inexperience partly responsible for the disaster, and he never trusts him as a pilot again.

Relationship with Hungry Joe and the Cat

Huple shares a tent with Hungry Joe and his pet cat. Despite being a light sleeper, Huple claims he never hears Hungry Joe's terrifying, ear-splitting nightmares that keep everyone else in the squadron awake. This denial is a source of frustration for the other men. Late one night, Hungry Joe dreams that Huple's cat is sleeping on his face, suffocating him, and when he wakes up, the cat is indeed on his face. A violent struggle ensues, with Hungry Joe trying to shoot the cat while the cat spits and feints at him. Yossarian bursts in and separates them, holding Hungry Joe and the cat by the scruffs of their necks, and declares a fair fight. The cat flees, and Hungry Joe is declared the winner, but he goes back to bed and dreams the same nightmare again. Huple, who is present during this melee, watches everything with a callow, vacant expression on his fifteen-year-old face, chewing a bulging wad of bubble gum. His passive, uncomprehending presence in the midst of the squadron's madness underscores his fundamental unfitness for the war.

Narrative Significance

Huple functions as a symbol of the absurd and criminal waste of war, a child sent to do a man's job. His extreme youth is a constant, jarring detail that highlights the institutional insanity of the military system. He is not a competent pilot, but he is put in charge of men's lives. He is not a mature adult, but he is forced to live with a man who has screaming nightmares and a cat that tries to suffocate him. Huple's presence in the cockpit during the Avignon mission is the proximate cause of the chaos that leads to Snowden's death, and his inability to control his own plane makes him, in Yossarian's eyes, a direct threat to survival. He is a flat character, defined almost entirely by his age and his inexperience, but this very flatness makes him a powerful indictment of the system that puts him there.