Yossarian, the Anti-hero
Yossarian is an anti-hero who thinks and behaves very unheroically as he attempts to resist war experiences as a bombardier. Members of his squadron are not allowed to be discharged and go home until they fly a certain number of missions, however the number is continually increased, with the result that discharge is literally impossible. Yossarian and others try countless schemes to get out of this impossible war game, this Catch-22. He repeatedly pleads insanity, but his superiors realize attempts to avoid war experiences actually indicate he is sane, so they send him back into combat. This is another of the countless Catch-22’s woven through the story. Yossarian becomes paranoid, for good reason, and has to cope with a roller coaster of emotions as those around him are killed, go mad, or treat him irrationally and continually intensify his fear of no escape from an insane world.
Yossarian: To die, or not to die – that is my question. And I’m going crazy trying to answer it.
Chaplain: Men have to die in a war. That’s a matter of necessity.
Yossarian: Yeah – but which men will die, though, is a matter of circumstance. And I think I’m willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance.
—Catch-22, the play