Analysis: The Fragmentation Of Human Identity

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
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 selfishly 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
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