Unraveling Insanity: Yossarian's Struggles in Catch-22

Human nature has capacity for both greatness and smallness, due greatly to the way they deal with thoughts, words, and actions. If they overcome their fears, maintain confidence and honesty, mental stability is nourished. However, when humans succumb to denial or fear, mental instability is the result. In the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Yossarian, the book’s protagonist makes a critical choice that leads to a devastating consequence: insanity. Since he is a coward and doesn’t like to take risks like everyone else who are fighting for their lives too. He is a bombardier who flew in endless amounts of missions seemed to have never gotten the chance to return home healthy and safe. Returning mentally healthy would be one of the problems that apparently seemed to be the only thing Yossarian cared about. Insanity evolves in this novel through the main character's actions as a cause and effect. In the novel “Catch-22” the author uses imagery, internal conflict and irony to reveal the causes of Yossarian’s insanity.

Joseph Heller

uses imagery to invoke a sense of comfort into Yossarian’s mind later leading him to the point where he is officially insane. For example, when he was in the hospital he felt so comfortable about not having to be in action during a time of war. The first cause that led to the rise of his insanity was creating a fake pain in his liver, making all the nurses, his doctor, and his colonel keep him until he felt he was fully healed. As Joseph Heller stated in his novel, “Give him another pill”(1). The fact that taking unnecessary pills can harm your body pretending to be sick can harm your mental wellbeing. Yossarian seemed to be completely unaware of what he was getting himself into. The use of imagery portrays how even the best of comfort can make any person go insane.
By also including irony, Joseph Heller makes Yossarian believe his own lie. What first started as a fake liver pain to what is now an unhealthy mindset. He starts to believe everybody who’s at war wants to kill him. He won’t even trust his own teammates on missions to bomb the enemies. By having Yossarian ask, “Am I crazy?”! Then having one the plane pilots respond, “ He’s crazy doc, he won’t fly with me he’s crazy alright”! Proving that his mentality of who he can trust is now corrupted by the fright of having to continue doing missions and clearly exposing himself to the slightest bullet or simply crashing into any obstacle. Ironically even Yossarian agrees that he is crazy and needs others to back him up by agreeing with him. He knows how bad he is messed up in his head and isn’t even aware of how he is acting among his own.
Joseph Heller also includes internal conflict within Yossarian, to expose the insanity he carries throughout the war.

As much as he wants to go home, he doesn’t make the rules neither his colonel. If they ask Yossarian to fly more missions than what he was originally asked to fly he has to do it. When the author stated, “He had decided that his only mission every time he had to fly was to comedown alive”. He had to pay more attention to his own goal that what the colonel had ordered him to do. When the pilot asked him, “Did you hit your target”? Yossarian answered, “What target”? Proving that his focus was far gone because of his worries taking over what is indeed more important to him than what is important to contribute to win the war.The internal conflict Yossarian experiences with himself is like a computer with a virus, since it slowly takes over his train of thought and his focus making him malfunction during the time of

action.

Overall, Yossarian led himself to what he never expected… Insanity. What had seemed like a simple lie, which led to confusion, which led to an unhealthy mental wellbeing. Karma is indeed real.It can reedem the unthinkable and make anyone who dares it it’s play doll manipulating you through your emotions and the way you act. In this case It didn’t just make Yossarian play his own game. It made him lose at his own game.