Film Analysis: Johnny Got His Gun

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, once accurately summed up the notion of war by stating: “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” In these words he conveyed what many Americans, particularly soldiers, feel during wartime. The novel Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo, shares the life and experiences of a gravely wounded WW1 soldier that is only able to think. In this stream of conscience narrative, Joe Bonham is in a constant battle with his mind as he discovers the extent of his injuries sustained from war, his inability to communicate with the outside world, and his struggles as he copes with loss. In the film Shenandoah, directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, Charlie Anderson experiences non

For both, the losses associated with war are mainly physical, with emotional effects ensuing. In Joe’s case, the losses he experiences are on a more personal level when compared to Charlie’s. A few chapters of Johnny's Got His Gun are focused on the development of Joe’s loss as he slowly realizes how badly he has been injured while fighting in the war. As Joe takes the time to think about how he is feeling and puts things together, he gradually concludes that he “had no legs and no arms and no eyes and no ears and no nose and no mouth and no tongue,” thus summing up the extent of his physical injuries and showing that loss in this sense will forever render him severely disabled (Trumbo 62). Losing the freedom of movement and having a body takes a deep toll on his mental health as the book progresses. Seeing that he is unable to communicate and have control over his life, he decides that he “couldn't live like this because he would go crazy” (Trumbo 63). These effects are different from Charlie’s because the loss Charlie experiences is related to his family rather than injury. Although he attempts to shield his children from the surrounding war, his youngest son is mistakenly recognized as a confederate soldier and is taken as prisoner. As a result of this, Charlie and most of his children embark on a journey to rescue the boy from camp, though in these efforts Jacob dies by the shot of a soldier, and James and his wife Ann are killed at the hands of scavengers. Evidently, these losses are not physically harming, but cause the entire family to suffer because there are no longer as many hands to help out on the farm and because of the emotional trauma. However, Joe can relate to this loss of family in a similar sense because since he can no longer communicate and is unidentifiable, his family has no means of