Consequences Of Johnny Got His Gun

There is no doubt that war is evil in every way. It is full of hatred and conflict and nothing comes out of it. It brings death, destruction, and the worst out of people. In a pacifistic yet desperate tone, Dalton Trumbo promotes anti-war ideals by explaining the life of a young soldier after he got affected by war in his novel Johnny Got His Gun. While some individuals’ point of view match with Trumbo’s, others may disagree with his reasoning. The controversial issue of the acceptance of war is talked about everybody, even popular artists. Some singers express their opinions on war via their songs, like George H. Cohan in his song “Over There (Johnny, Get Your Gun)”, and the band Metallica with their song “One”. Each sends different messages depending on the setting, their music’s genre, and diction used in the making of the lyrics.

Life can bring unexpected events that individuals might not be prepared to confront. This was the case in the short story “On The Rainy River” written by Tim O’Brien. Young Tim is drafted to the military to fight the American War in Vietnam. He faces the conflict of whether he should or should not go to war after being drafted. The thought of giving up the future he has worked so hard for and instead fight a war “for uncertain reasons” terrifies him. He must make the agonizing decision of whether to pursue his personal desire and in turn be shamed by society or conform, sacrificing his ideals in the process.

In the wise words of Charlie Anderson, “[I]f we don’t try, we don’t do. And if we don’t do, why are we here on this Earth?” Charlie Anderson is the protagonist in the movie Shenandoah, who lives with his six sons, Jacob, James, John, Nathan, Henry, and Boy, and his daughter, Jennie. Charlie Anderson is the type of person who responds to everything by trying and giving it his all, but only if it concerns him. The movie takes place during the Civil war, which occurs near their family farm and Charlie’s intent was to stay neutral because he felt that the war did not concern him, until his youngest son, Boy, was mistaken for a union soldier and taken by the confederate army. Charlie ventures off with five of his sons and his daughter, while James and his wife, Ann, and their baby stay back at the house. Along the way, tragedy strikes the family, affecting them in ways that cannot be undone. The protagonist in the novel Johnny Got his Gun, Joe Bonham, was drafted into the war and greatly injured as a result. Joe experiences a loss of his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and limbs. The only thing that Joe is left with is a working brain and very little ways to communicate with the outside world. As the novel progresses, Joe faces an immense amount of internal conflict and struggles with the effects that war has on him. Although both Charlie and Joe experience the harsh impacts of war, they respond to them in quite different ways.

The time when I saw this the most was in the following lines, “I survived, but it’s not a happy ending I was a coward. I went to war.” In theses few closing lines that were read to the class I was taking in the idea, he did his civic duty in going to war when he had the opportunity to go to Canada. He was actually almost there and then he let the fear get the better of him and he went to a war that he hardly knew anything about. I remain guessing at the fact he was starting to realize that he didn’t have the desire to feel exiled from his home country and throw in the towel. Instead he went to war and came back alive regretting a lot of things that he was too afraid to

In the search of what war has taken from both Joe and Charlie, they find auspicious halfway points that give the impression that their main goal is coming within reach. Joe realizing that through the finding of time, he can begin to reconnect himself to the world, starts to formulate ideas on how he can accomplish this. After weeks, months, maybe years of trial and error, Joe finally conjures up the idea to use the few exposed patches of skin on his neck to feel the

Life can bring unexpected events that individuals might not be prepared to confront. This was the case of O’Brien in the story, “On the Rainy River” from the book The Things They Carried. As an author and character O’Brien describes his experiences about the Vietnam War. In the story, he faces the conflict of whether he should or should not go to war after being drafted. He could not imagine how tough fighting must be, without knowing how to fight, and the reason for such a war. In addition, O’Brien is terrified of the idea of leaving his family, friends and everything he loves behind. He decides to run away from his responsibility with the society. However, a feeling of shame and embarrassment makes him go to war. O’Brien considers

Johnny is not justified in what he did and is guilty because he had the intent to kill. Ponyboy talks about Johnny and the previous attack by saying, “He would kill the next person who jumped him. Nobody was ever going to beat him like that again. Not over his dead body…” (Hinton 34). This shows that Johnny was changed by the previous

Joe’s understanding of war in Johnny Got His Gun is very similar to Boy’s in the sense that he doesn’t really understand what he would be fighting for in a battle. One example of this is when Joe is at the train station with his family awaiting his send-off to war. During this send off Joe didn’t really question why he was going to war or what he would be doing in war. He went without and hesitation which shows that his

At the beginning of the book Joe starts to truly realize how destroyed he is as a man, “My arms are gone. Both of my arms are gone Kareen both of them. They’re gone. They’ve cut my arms off both of my arms. Oh jesus mother god Kareen they’ve cut off both of them. Oh jesus mother god Kareen Kareen Kareen my arms” (38). Just by reading this excerpt, the sad cries and absolute desolation of Joe is apparent through the use of repetition. Trumbo first repeats “my arms are gone” multiple times before switching clearly to repeating “they” and finally to repeating “Kareen”. He does this to powerfully ingrain and fix a dilemma, before placing the blame and then showing how hopeless this situation really is. Trumbo’s use of repetition was very well organized in the sense that they pressed these ideas into the reader by repeating them and highlighting the theme. The last use of repetition serving purposely to show what Joe is emotionally going through by repeating “Kareen”, representing how Joe has become almost like a child, or not in a powerful enough state to do anything about his issue. Trumbo emphasizes the helplessness of being drafted and forced into abhorrent situations again, “He too had been taken away from his home. He too had been put into the service of another without his consent. He too had been sent to a foreign country far from his native parts. He too had been forced to fight against other slaves of his own kind in a strange place” (183). Here, the repetition of he, referring to soldiers but more so just the average man, is repeated here to emphasize how regular people are forced like “slaves” to fight for people who are higher up. This strongly resembles like the quote above, just like a child and their parents earlier, where Joe repeatedly cries out for Kareen like a child begging for help. Really, Dalton does this to show the bigger picture which is how soldiers are

A sequence of events leads up to Joe becoming almost completely isolated from the outside world. During his time in the isolated continent, Joe becomes addicted to narcotics; he escapes his pain and anguish by succumbing to detached and paralyzed state of mind. Throughout his journey in this secluded continent, he is faced with his hatred of the Germans and his desire to enact vengeance upon them for all that he has lost. When he meets a German geologist exploring the frozen tundra, he inadvertently kills him. Joe experiences ironic feelings of remorse after so many years spent obsessing over the destruction of the Germans. There was no gratification or fulfillment, for Joe, in the German man’s death. Joe felt repulsed and an abhorrence in himself for his

After a few years of going to church with his family fervently on Sundays, fourteen year old Sam lost his father, which later on would describe as “Only one for passion, a military life” .

This is similar to what happened to Krebs in Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home”. Krebs has returned home to find that it is not that everybody and the world around him has changed, but he was the one that had changed. He has fought in some of the worst wars there were and he didn’t want to come back home. Krebs dreaded coming back to the states, and would have preferred to stay overseas. Krebs was once used to a normal life. He went to a Christian school and was a part of a fraternity. His perception on life had changed drastically after enlisting in the military and fighting in a war. When he returned home, the girls that he saw on the street were the same as when he was there years ago. His father still parks his car in the same spot day in and day out. His mother tries to encourage him to get a job, but he doesn’t care. He was so accustomed to the repetition of a soldier’s life. He couldn’t adjust to the typical lifestyle that other soldiers made. Somehow you can see the struggle he is going through. After the physical war, there was a war going on internally. Krebs had lost his emotion and will to care. The horror he experienced actually seeing first-hand life and death situations were incomprehensible to his parents. There was no way they would be able to identify with him.

How maybe he was a scholar and maybe his parents were farmers.  Then O'Brien goes on to talk of maybe why this young man was in the army, and maybe why he was fighting;  these are something’s that are taught in the schools.  O'Brien states that the man may have joined because he was struggling for independence, juts like all the people that were fighting with him.  Maybe this man had been taught from the beginning that to defend the land was a mans highest duty and privilege.  Then on the other hand maybe he was not a good fighter, and maybe in poor health but had been told to fight and could not ask any questions.  These reasons are all reasons that are taught in textbooks; they go along with the idea of the draft.  Some people go fight because they want to and others go because they are told they have to. How do you tell these people apart in the heat of battle or when they are dead?  The way that O'Brien starts to describe the young man as someone who was small and frail, and maybe had plans for a bright future puts sorrow in the readers heart, in that all his plans can not happen for him or maybe the family that is longing for his return.  It also shows the regret that maybe going on in the killers’ mind.  For O'Brien to be writing on how this young mans life has come to a sudden end and his plans for the future is over is intriguing.  Then to add to that he had the story written through the eyes of the soldier that ended this young mans life.  The

Tim O’Brien has shown repeatedly in this story that grief is the one thing that is the hardest to carry for any person. It stays with you and will sometimes cause you even more grief. This story shines a very bright light on what was happening to the soldier when they are not in combat, and how their very emotions can eat away with them. “It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do” (482), you can see through these final thoughts of Jimmy’s that he truly thinks that there is no way for any of them to let go of the emotions that they must carry every

Following his rape, he starts to do what he feels is right, and in one case, goes directly against direct orders to stand for what he believes in, as well as to reconcile everything he’s been through as a soldier; the violence, the pain, and everything that has emotionally and physically scarred him.