A Season of Madness by Hanan al Shaykh illustrates a helpless, Lebanese woman- Fatin, that is desperately seeking a way out of her marriage. Joseph Hellers Catch-22, portrays a young soldier, Yossarian that tries to find a way out of the a

International Baccalaureate World Literature

Being in a controlled system, requires one to follow the rules. The two literary texts that will be examined in this essay show how authority controls characters. “A Season of Madness” by Hanan al Shaykh illustrates a helpless, Lebanese woman- Fatin, that is desperately seeking a way out of her marriage. Joseph Heller’s “ Catch-22”, portrays a young soldier, Yossarian that tries to find a way out of the army, yet the law preventing him from doing so. Protagonists in these two texts use insanity as a tool in the hope of achieving their goals.

The main characters are under a form of control that stops them from having things their way. Yossarian is under a bureaucratic control; his profession is planned in such a manner that he has no way out of it. “ You cant let crazy people decide whether you’re crazy or not, (line 12)” this shows how the decision is not up to the soldiers and all judgments will be made by the authority. “ Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy (line 24).” This proves that the authority decides the sanity of the soldier, whether they may or may not be. Fatin is supposed to live in such a way that she must meet the expectations of her society, “They pushed me into my room (page 72),” “His mother suggested taking me to a doctor (page 72).” “ She was the one who could not even say yes when she was asked to be his bride (page 72).” This shows that Fatin is controlled by her mother-in-law and her husband, leaving her with no say in her own marriage.

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The protagonists put all their efforts into getting out of their situation. Yossarian tries his very best to get out of the army. “Can’t you ground someone who’s crazy?” “ Then why don’t you ground me? I’m crazy.” He tries to convince the officers that he really is crazy. Fatin goes to extreme cases. “I had tried to jump out of the window and fly and run away in a truck transporting ivory.” This demonstrates her madness, “Don’t kiss me on my eyes tomorrow or we’ll be separated.” Nonetheless, she still kissed him after her husband said that, she goes against everything in order for him to leave her. The fate of these characters is bleak, showing that they have a low chance out of their conditions, as trying their best to get out leads them to the first spot. It shows that doing nothing to get out of the situation as well as trying everything will always keep them in the same place. It makes me sympathise the characters, as it is quite hard to imagine their struggle and how much they hate the position they are in.

Everything is being risked to accomplish their targets. We only find out towards the end, in the monologue that Yossarian wants to get out of the army. “All he had to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and fly more missions.” In the beginning of the novel it seemed quite vague and puzzling as to why Yossarian would be proving how crazy he is to his officer, but we discover that he feels this is the only way out of his career. It is also towards the end that I understood the foolish behaviour of Fatin, and that we see that she may not really be insane, that the purpose behind her actions was to get a divorce, because she was in love with another man. “My consciousness has eaten away at me on account of my unfaithfulness to him. Then I forced myself to look up and confront them.” However after Fatin having confessed to them, they pitied her and thought she must have lost her mind.

When reading these texts, I realise that being under such control doesn’t give people many options and leaves them to resort to such states such as acting mad . The actions that were made by these characters have proven to be useless and avoid them from getting what they want. It is because the situation is a circular one, which shows doing something to get out will not lead them anywhere. The act of insanity doesn’t help them to achieve their goals as the military command towards Yossarian and the societal expectations of Fatin decide their destinies.

Sana Bukhari, ID- 41249