This plan would include promotion to Major. The thought of going home is so powerful for Yossarian that at first he agrees to the plan. The system has finally corrupted Yossarian's morals. Later Minderbinder makes a passing attempt at doing the right thing, trying to find a young girl after Rome is bombed, but he is quickly distracted by business opportunities. By comparison, Yossarian persists in trying to find her even though he knows the girl's older sister is obsessed with trying to kill him. Once again, Yossarian puts someone else's welfare ahead of his own. However, in the hospital recovering in the hospital from stab wounds, he realizes he cannot take the deal. He finds out that another companion has managed to escape to Sweden, and Yossarian makes this...
By comparison, Minderbinder would never consider fleeing the war as he would have to shut down his business.
In the end, both Yossarian and Minderbinder have taken control of their lives. Yossarian has taken Snowden's secret to heart, and he realizes that the impulse to live is the most important human quality. But the impulse to live is not simply a desire to survive at any cost: Yossarian cannot live as a hypocrite or as a slave; as a result, he decides to incur enormous personal danger by attempting to escape from the military rather than take the safe deal that would betray his friends. Yossarian chooses simply to take his life back into his own hands.
Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
