A soldier named Yossarian is stationed with his Air Force squadron on the island of Pianosa, close to the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea, during the second half of World War II. In the eyes of their ruthlessly ambitious superior officers, Yossarian and his friends are inhuman resources who must endure a nightmare, absurd existence characterized by violence and bureaucracy. The squadron is carelessly thrown into brutal combat situations and bombing runs where the members' primary concern is getting good aerial shots of explosions rather than eliminating their targets. To ensure that nobody is ever sent home, their colonels keep increasing the number of missions they must fly before being released. Yossarian is the only person who appears to be aware of the war, and everyone else dismisses his claims that millions of people are attempting to kill him as irrational.
Captain John Yoassarian is the main character of Catch-22. He is a bombardier in the 256th Squadron of the Twenty-seventh Air Force stationed on Pianosa during World War II. Yossarian might be a great friend, a fun partner, or even a charming little scamp. He would not want to be a hero and is not one. On the other hand, the captain lacks great physical prowess, talent, or attractiveness. He was born into the common race, and he has no reason to think that the gods are on his side. He would rather be a civilian than a warrior. Yossarian views ideas like "courage" and "heroism" as at best foolish and ultimately fatal. At first, his only concern is with staying alive; he must mature and build a stronger character before considering others. For Yossarian, success meant getting a free flight home. The Captain is not a man of action as much as he is a man of avoidance, despite his capacity for cunning and cleverness. He expresses his cowardice openly and worries a lot. Yossarian values living over pursuing fame. Although Yossarian develops and changes as a person, he remains an antihero. In 1942, while serving in the military and stationed at Lowery Field, Colorado, he learns the pleasures of malingering and the safety of the hospital. He pretends to have appendicitis in order to get out of training and start a committed relationship with hospital life.
Yossarian, however, does not exhibit the traits of a typical hero. Instead of putting his life in danger to save others, he makes it a point throughout the book to avoid doing so. But because of how distorted the system of values is around Yossarian, he seems to be left with no choice but to adopt this strategy, if only because it makes sense. As we read Catch-22, the lack of logic in military bureaucracy grows on us. Men are continually asked to risk their lives for reasons that are completely illogical and unimportant. In this illogical world, Yossarian grasps onto the one real, sensible notion, that he ought to make an effort to preserve life. Yossarian, however, does not generalize this idea to mean that he should endanger his own life in an effort to save everyone else's, unlike a traditional hero. It is possible to redefine heroism as straightforward self-preservation in a world where life itself is so misunderstood and carelessly destroyed.
Yossarian is put in conflict because of this insistence on self-preservation. He cares deeply for the other members of his squadron and is traumatized by their deaths, despite his determination to survive at all costs. Both his sympathy for Snowden and his horrified realization that his own body is just as brittle as Snowden's contribute to his ongoing horror at the news of Snowden's passing. Yossarian ultimately finds himself unable to prioritize his own safety over that of the entire squadron when given the option. This concern for others complicates the straightforward logic of self-preservation and produces its own Catch-22: life is unworthy of living without a moral concern for the welfare of others, but a moral concern for the welfare of others puts one's life in danger. Yossarian ultimately finds a way out of this predicament by figuratively leaving the battlefield. By doing so, he rejects the option of either continuing to serve as a soldier who risks his life for vain reasons or becoming an officer who avoids danger at the expense of his troops.
Yossarian, the protagonist of Catch-22, is one of the few characters who is given significant development throughout the narrative. Yossarian serves as a character that most readers can relate to and who embodies many of the themes and ideas of Catch-22. Yossarian worries about dying constantly, but he also keeps flying his missions so that no one else has to fly them in his place. Yossarian believes he is rational while everyone else believes they are insane, but the other way around. Due to the fact that no one has ever heard of him, his name is also perceived as unique.
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