Johnny Got His Gun War in its self is a tragedy. Experiencing the tragedies of war has a life long impact on ones life. In the novel " Johnny got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo, Joe Bonham is a victim of war and he is forever changed physicaly, mentally and spiritualy. Through Joe it is evident that the price we pay for war is much to high. All people in life have some sort of basic function. Weather it be a parapaliegic who lives alone, goes to work, has some sort of social life, and is a member of a wheelchair basket ball team or a quadrapaliegic who is incapable of doing much but still communicate with friends and family members. Joe is in a terribly worse situation then any of them. Joe spends his days in a hospital bed. He is incapable of any sort of fuction other than moving his head up and down. He can not speak nor can he eat for he has no mouth nor a face. He must be assisted for thing's that a 3 year old child could probably do on their own like changing close or going to the washroom. This predicament, which Joe finds himself in, causes Joe tremendous mental anguish. "Please I can't. Please no. Somebody come. Help me. I can't lie here forever like this until maybe years from now I die. 1 can't. Nobody can. It isn't possible." (Trumbo 3.64) To try to imagine the mental stress which Joe suffers from is unconceivable to any human being. Joe can not distinguish his memories from his consciencnouss nor can he judge if he is awake or asleep. Joe can not communicate with his keepers which is the worst of all his folies "He kept tapping. He kept on now for another reason aside from the simple desire to speak which had started him out. He kept on tapping because he didn't dare stop he didn't dare think. He didn't have the courage to ask himself so simple a question as how long will it be before the nurse understands what I'm doing."(Trumbo 15.180) this causes Joe the most anguish because all he wants now, in his condition, is to go into the world and show everyone the horrors of war. Joe imagines himself in a schoolhouse recitng this nursery rhyme: "Hickory *censored*ory dock my daddy' nuts from shell shock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and burned out his eyes.
My thoughts after reading this book are that war can really take a toll on someone and war can bring out the worst in everyone. Works Cited:.. Caputo, Philip. The. A Rumor of War.
In “Who Shot Johnny” by Debra Dickerson, Dickerson recounts the shooting of her 17 year old nephew, Johnny. She traces the outline of her life, while establishing a creditable perception upon herself. In first person point of view, Dickerson describes the events that took place after the shooting, and how those events connected to her way of living. In the essay, she uses the shooting of her nephew to omit the relationship between the African American society, and the stereotypic African American society.
There’s a common misconception when anybody says that time heals all wounds. It, in fact, does the opposite and only masks the pain one feels. To question, for example, if a flower was to get old and wilt, would it still be considered a flower? Of course it would, as so pain physically and mentally. So as deaf, blind, speechless, and limbless Joe tries to get a hold of himself in both the novel and movie, his mind tries to protect his sanity as he recounts his past memories, is fantasizing, and in his present condition. Writer Dalton Trumbo is able to exhibit Joe, wounded soldier, as he grapples with humanity and the militaries reasoning for leaving a man in his present state alive.
After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.
Without a doubt, war is an experience that can define a person, for good or bad. In the case of author Kurt Vonnegut, his experiences in World War II greatly affected his writing. Most of his works in his long bibliography of novels, articles, short stories, and plays have some sort of reference or allusion to war or other world conflicts. Kurt Vonnegut uses his novels Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five to preach against war by stringing together loose and outlandish story lines in a satirical and melancholy fashion.
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, written by the talented author Chris Hedges, gives us provoking thoughts that are somewhat painful to read but at the same time are quite personal confessions. Chris Hedges, a talented journalist to say the least, brings nearly 15 years of being a foreign correspondent to this book and subjectively concludes how all of his world experiences tie together. Throughout his book, he unifies themes present in all wars he experienced first hand. The most important themes I was able to draw from this book were, war skews reality, dominates culture, seduces society with its heroic attributes, distorts memory, and supports a cause, and allures us by a constant battle between death and love.
In Hemingway’s “In Another Country”, the main character, Nick Adams, and the major both have their lives changed by the war. Nick Adams lost part of his leg from the war, yet remains hopeful that he will return to the United States and marry someone. However, the major has the opposite view. He used to be the greatest fencer in Italy, yet his hand is shrunken grotesquely from the war. He recently married his wife when he learned he was free of the war, yet she died from pneumonia. The major has lost hope for the future and bears many similarities with sufferers of PTSD. In Bierce’s “Coup de Grace”, the major characters are the two friends, Captain Madwell and Sergeant Halcrow, and Halcrow’s brother and Madwell’s “enemy”, Major Halcrow. Earlier in the story, a conversation between the captain and the major demonstrates the hate they bear toward each other. Then, when Madwell finds his friend, Madwell kills him, believing it is the best thing he could do for his friend. Although Madwell and Halcrow were friends before the war, Bierce uses the war to force Madwell to kill his best friend. This, in a nutshell, shows that the horror of war has the power to affect characters and their
It is evident that the occurrence of war throughout history has made a lasting impression on soldiers and civilians alike. This has been expressed over the years through different works of literature. The cost of war to the individual is illustrated in “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, and “The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick because each story shows some element of mental, emotional, and physical toll.
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
9. Asa Clardy was a tall muscular man with gray sideburns and an irregular shaped long scar on his left cheek. Asa reacts cruelly and dishonestly to situations.
Imagine, if you can, having altzheimers disease. Sometimes you are completely aware of everything around you, but at other times you can not even remember the names of your spouse or children. One morning, you wake up, and being completely aware, you go to the store, only to find when you get there that you can't remember how to get home. The disease you have will continue to grow worse, and your condition will deteriorate until your mental faculties are so diminished that you will not even be able to remember how to put on your shoes. At this point, with all your abilities either gone or dwindling, you will have lost your independence and be forced to rely completely on others to live your life. Imagine, again, suffering a traumatic accident that has rendered you paralyzed from the chin down and dependent on a respirator to breathe for you. Suddenly, life as you knew it is gone. You can not do anything for yourself, not even so much as breathe for yourself and keep yourself alive. Any and all of your daily maintenance is preformed by someone else. You have no abilities, no...
When the war breaks out, this tranquil little town seems like the last place on earth that could produce a team of vicious, violent soldiers. Soon we see Jim thrown into a completely contrasting `world', full of violence and fighting, and the strong dissimilarity between his hometown and this new war-stricken country is emphasised. The fact that the original setting is so diversely opposite to that if the war setting, the harsh reality of the horror of war is demonstrated.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
War has always been something to be dreaded by people since nothing good comes from it. War affects people of all ages, cultures, races and religion. It brings change, destruction and death and these affect people to great extents. “Every day as a result of war and conflict thousands of civilians are killed, and more than half of these victims are children” (Graca & Salgado, 81). War is hard on each and every affected person, but the most affected are the children.
The word "war" is always horrible to man especially with who has been exposed to. It is destruction, death, and horrible suffers that has been with all man's life. In the short story "In Another Country", Ernest Hemingway shows us the physical and emotional tolls of the war as well as its long-term consequences on man's life. He also portrays the damaging effects that the war has on the lives of the Italians and even of the Americans.