Major Major Major Major
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Major Major Major Major is a fictional character in the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. He has the surname Major, and at birth his father gave him the given name Major, and the middle name Major. The novel explains this was a joke on his father's part, and notes that it is not a particularly funny one.
Inducted during World War II, he is promoted from Private to Major while still in boot camp, without attending the Officers Training Corps or any advance warning at all. This is caused by an IBM machine with a sense of humor similar to his father's.
During the novel, it is revealed that he can never be promoted nor demoted, because the army has only one Major Major Major Major and does not intend to lose him.
Major Major Major Major was also promoted to squadron commander after his predecessor, Major Duluth, was killed in action. It is this event that causes Major Major Major Major to become a recluse: he stops eating meals at the mess hall, he avoids all his duties by forging false names to correspondence requiring his signature, and he enters his office by scooting along a ditch then jumping through a window.
Upon discovering that forging false names (like Washington Irving and John Milton) to official correspondence would considerably decrease his workload, Major Major Major Major began to sign every document with those two names. This caused a duo of CID men (who were not working together, and were in fact trying to kill each other) to begin an investigation as to the identity of the forger. Because Yossarian once censored an enlisted man's letter and attached the group chaplain's name to it, the CID men believed that said chaplain was intercepting Major Major Major Major's correspondence and forging signatures onto them. This investigation eventually leads to the chaplain's arrest and trial.
His father, mentioned briefly in the novel, is one of the richest alfalfa farmers in his community. He tells his wife that he named Major "Caleb" and she only discovers his real name when his birth certificate is required for him to enter kindergarten. He receives a farm subsidy for every crop of alfalfa that he does not grow with his farmland and uses this money to buy more land to not grow alfalfa on. He believes that receiving money for not producing something is divinely ordained. Ironically, he preaches the proverb "You reap what you sow." He would leap out of bed at noon each day, to ensure that the chores were not being done.
Maj. Major M. Major and his father both reinforce the theme that bureaucracy is absurd.