John Yossarian's Death In 'Catch-22'

John Yossarian, the protagonist of Catch-22, is both a member of the squadron’s community and alienated by it. Yossarian’s characteristics are not those of a typical hero. From Catch-22, I found some important manifestations traumatic about Yossarian. Death is the main theme and also the main thread that goes throught the novel. For Yossarian, he decides to live forever or die in the attempt, and he went up is to come down live. Therefore we find he is really afraid of the death. The first is the “dead man” in Yossarian’s tent, “the dead man in Yossarian tent was a pest, and Yossarian didn’t like him, even though he had never seem him.”（Heller, 1961: 22）Actually, there is nobody in his tent, includes the “dead man”. Just cause the bloody

“Please help me, I’m cold.”(Heller, 1961:226)Snowdon’s death is the moment at which Yossarian lose nerve. About Snowdon’s death Heller described: “Yossarian’s stomach turned over when his eyes first beheld the macabre scene; he was absolutely revolted, and he paused in fright a few moments before descending, crouched on his hand and knees in the narraw tunnel over the bomb bay beside the sealed corrugated carton containing the first-aid kit.Snowdon was lying on his Mae West. Not far away on the floor lay the small tail gunner in a dead faint. The wound Yossarian saw was in the outside of Snoedon’s thigh, as large and deep as a football, it seemed. It was impossible to tell where the shreds of his saturated coveralls ended and the ragged flesh began.”（Heller, 1961:436) He was scared, nervous and desperate. The event that has so traumatized Yossarian does not recede into the past as Yossarian moves through time; rather, he continually returns to it, unable to escape. In this novel, he has subjected himself and his friends to various illness, refused to enjoy fruit because it might make him healthy, and endured rather unpleasant hospital stays-all for the sake of not having to fly