Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo :: essays papers

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.