The Fragmentation of Human Identity INTRO: The fragmentation of human identity is a product of the behavioral disorders and social environments presented in Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. Captain John Yossarian is an Air Force bombardier, whose traumatic endeavors force him to blend with the corrupt colonels in the army as he prioritizes his well being, and excludes any responsibilities in his combat circle. The adherence to social status pressure Patrick Bateman into a heap of falsified relationships between his yuppie circle and aesthetic materialism.
The cause and effects of Yossarian’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Bateman’s Nihilism, and their dual identities created through the author’s satirist commentary, determines that Yossarian and Bateman are left pathologically scarred by their individual environment. PTSD: In the novels, “The importance of individuality and personality of the subject is fragmented to nothing, while all the characters try to blend in as much as possible” (Fredriksson 7). In order to understand this fragmentation of identity in the novel, we must first understand what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is.
PTSD is a common psychiatric disorder, where an individual may witness flashbacks resulting from a traumatic life experience, such as war. PTSD plays the commanding role on Yossarian’s health, and faces continuous trauma due to the death of a fellow soldier, Snowden, whom he tries to cure from a battle wound, but ultimately dies in his hands. Yossarian develops a cynical identity of not trusting anyone: “Strangers he [doesn’t] know [shoot] at him with cannons every time he [flies] up into the air to drop bombs on them” (Heller CHAPTER 2 PARAGRAPH 19).
He elfishly puts his safety before others, paralleling those bureaucratic agencies that have only made it impossible for him to leave the army. Yossarian relies and grasps any form of his sanity in order to get through the remaining missions to go home, since Catch-22 and the missions are ever changing through the colonel’s demands: “But they don’t say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That’s the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twentyseventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you’d still have to fly them, or you’d be guilty of disobeying an order of his.
And then Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you. ” (CHAPTER 6, PARA 48). This is a form of satire used by Heller to reflect on the bureaucratic agencies that exist in the world, where greed overpowers any human consequence, and people are leveled to only numbers. In this case, the soldiers are there to only serve the colonels, without any form of compassion. In result of the number of missions set by General Cathhart, the soldiers have no choice but to serve longer than proposed terms, intensifying the trauma, and leaving them pathologically wounded. PTSD is prominent in army settings.
In support, we have statistical data provided by Dr. Hoge: “21,822 service members who screened positive for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 17,364 reported witnessing persons being wounded or killed or engaging in direct combat during which they discharged their weapon” (Hoge 3). This is exactly the situation that Yossarian faces, as he has witnessed Snowden wounded and killed during combat. Yossarian’ circular thoughts of death, flashbacks, and illogical absurdity, may be speculation from Heller that Yossarian is indeed suffering from PTSD.
Yossarian’s absurd thoughts are redundant throughout the novel: “I’m dead serious about those other wards,” Yossarian continued grimly. M. P. s won’t protect you, because they’re the craziest of all. I’d go with you myself, but I’m scared stiff. Insanity is contagious. This is the only sane ward in the whole hospital. This is probably the only sane ward in the whole world, for that matter” (CHAPTER 1 PAGE 89). Trauma has left Yossarian fearful to complete missions, as he may become the next target. STATISTICS: In addition, Catch-22 mirrors the side effects of war today, as Dr.
Hoge explains: “Thirty-five percent of war veterans accessing mental health services in the year after returning home; 12% per year were diagnosed with a mental health problem”(Hoge 2). Hoge also states in his article that the United States Department of Defense required all returning members of the Iraqi war to take a Post-Deployment Health Assessment while returning back from the military. The statistical data proves that behavioral disorders in the military does not only resonate with the book, but it exists widely today.
It also shows that mental illness may not only develop during combat, but after returning home as well. The environment of an individual plays a drastic role for ones mental health, an example provided through time in combat. REAL ARMY STORIES: Moreover, Michael Scoggins discusses Heller’s experiences as an Air Force bombardier in his article: “I had no power to move, not even a finger. And I believed with all my heart and quaking soul that my life was ending and that we were going down, like the plan on fire I had witnessed plummeting only a few minutes before (Scoggins 219).
Although Heller states in the article that Yossarian’s views were not necessarily his own, a fellow soldier’s near death experience does influence certain plots in the book, such as Snowden’s death. Heller and Yossarian’s experience in combat are parallel, therefore it is important because the book is responding to the overarching problem that mental illness is a larger issue than one might perceive. Trauma is only the first step of behavioral disorders, and it can only get worse from there if not assessed in a timely manner.
Mental illness as a whole does not only affect the individual, but it takes toll on society: “After leaving the military, K’s situation worsened, as did the symptoms of his PTSD. The Destructive behavior culminated in his 1982 conviction for second-degree murder, a crime K committed while intoxicated” (Baehr 52). The experiences of Vietnam veteran “K” highlight the importance of taking immediate action towards behavioral disorders because the mentally ill, if not assessed for further medical care, may prey on civilians and commit heinous crimes such as “K”.
SELFISHNESS: Yossarian will begin to blur the lines between the bureaucratic agencies and his self, as he selfishly places his own safety above others as he finds solitude in the Italian military hospital. The ital provides him with a security net where he can escape the horrors of battle once in a while, but selfishly lies to the generals and nurses that he suffers from liver pain: “Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork and good sportsmanship; it was to get away from them all that he had first discovered the hospital” (Heller 175).
Yossarian uses selfishness as a coping mechanism, to temporarily escape the horrors of war. The hospital is an escape for Yossarian, but it also opens the door to another instability in the novel, and that is the irrationality and absurdity of thought between the soldiers. An example of this is when the soldiers in the hospital begin to speak on the injustices of war and mortality: “Some men are killed and some are not, and some men get sick and some do not, without any patterns” (Heller 180).
As Yossarian perceives the hospital as an escape, he also feels that death in the hospital is less cruel: “There was a much lower death rate inside the hospital, and a much healthier death rate. Few people died unnecessarily” (176). Aside from his cynical attitude towards everyone, he is undeniably scared of what can happen to him, in relation to Snowden: “Yossarian lost his nerve on the mission to Avignon because Snowden lost his guts” (234).
Yossarian knows that he can be the next one to die in battle, and since it is nearly impossible for him to leave because of the changing mission requirements, he is left but to find a getaway and that is the hospital, a symbol for sanity. PATRICK BATEMAN: Schoene Berthold describes the psychological disorders that Bateman may suffer from in American Psycho: “Patrick’s precarious selfhood is driven by both hysterical and autistic impulses, finding itself at the mercy of irreconcilable tensions that unleash themselves in hyperbolic acts of violence, both real and imagined.
Patrick Bateman demonstrates signs of Narcissism, Autism and Hysteria, “regarded as so normal as to be invisible” (Schoene 246). Bateman is a narcissist who expresses himself through violent acts of cannibalism and the objectification of people, which further shows how his elite status has only influenced a nihilistic perspective in him. In spite of Bateman’s aesthetic and social influence, he is still invisible to those in his immediate circle who take no interest in seeing him for what he is, but what they want to see.
They are all diluted just as Bateman, and their actions prove so: “I’m fairly certain that Timothy Bryce and Evelyn are having an affair. Timothy is the only interesting person I know. I’m almost completely indifferent as to whether Evelyn knows I’m having an affair with Courtney Rawlinson, her closest friend. Courtney is almost perfect looking” (Ellis). This shows that Batman solely invests himself into this “mask” of superficialities and aesthetics relationships.
MATERIALISM: In order to cope with reality, Bateman refocuses his attention on material aesthetics that evidently plays a vital role in his life. The only escape from this environment is to place a strong emphasis on materialistic objects such as luxury good like Ralph Lauren and Burberry, high-end restaurants, and fashion magazines, which have become an obsession, or perhaps a larger insecurity. Perry Wayne speaks on Patrick Bateman and the insecurities that many of these elite yuppies experienced in the 1980’s.
He explains: “Adherence to a social uniform hiding beneath his ‘ mask of sanity’ represents the society of the 1980’s where everyone conforms to the acceptable norms, suffocated by the materialistic veneer, afraid to reveal their true selves” (WAYNE SOMETHING). While Batman portrays this ultimate masculine identity, he is indeed afraid of his insecurities of not living up to the expectations of a successful Wall-Streeter. Minor things become major in his world, such as getting on the list to the hottest restaurant in town, Dorsia, or having the nicest business card amongst the other yuppies.
