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Character Analysis: Johnny Got His Gun

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The Complications of Personal Investment
Personal investment is providing one’s body, belongings and/or your beliefs toward a cause which shapes not only personality, but one’s stance on how something should be handled. Many people personally invest their money towards materialistic items, invest their time toward certain beliefs, or invest their body toward many situations. Nevertheless, war can be one of the most important and dangerous personal investments, which can change one’s perspective forever. In the classic World War I novel, Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo, the author puts Joe Bonham through an immense change in his belief towards his personal investment in war. Correspondingly, the 1965 American Civil War movie, Shenandoah, by Andrew V. McLaglen, the …show more content…

Johnny Got His Gun and Shenandoah both vary in their approach, but reveal a similar purpose by exploring the consequences of personal investment in war through the characters of Joe Bonham and Jacob Anderson. In Johnny Got His Gun, Joe was faced with one of the worst consequences known to man as his communication with the outside world was cut off. As Joe was fighting in war, he was caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. This caused him to lose all of his limbs and senses including his arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, and tongue. These conditions left him with a perfectly functioning mind as he was trapped as a prisoner of his own body. Joe was so focused on the fact that war was going to bring him the liberty, freedom, and democracy he was fighting for, when reality truly became known and none of his hopes seemed to be important. His normal life was now changed forever and the realization that this war was not his fight took place. This leads to the supposition that there are much greater consequences resulting from war, hence showing that personal

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Johnny encounters a truly unpleasant life all through the novel The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Johnny's guardians constantly beat him up and disregard him. On top of that, he doesn't motivate enough to eat and is even attempting suicide, the greater part of that makes him the gang's pet. "If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you'll have Johnny." Johnny was terrified of his own shadow after he was jumped by the Socs when he was sixteen.

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In the movie, “Johnny Got His Gun,” Johnny's flashbacks are from a combination of ether and the battle Johnny made it through. His head is very messed up and injuries are very bad. Because of these nightmares, they bring him flashbacks. It is on account that his injuries are so bad that remembering home and his girl are his ways of coping. His first flashback is of having conversations with his girl.

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1356 Words | 6 Pages

He is alone; he has no job opportunity in Washington because Roy has died. But Joe is happy. Joe has finally faced unlocked that “hidden thing” and he has embraced it. Joe’s secret exists no more, and he gains that confidence and sureness that he was missing. Although Joe loses everyone else, he finds himself.

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The Enlightening “They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live.” In the 1939 book “Johnny Got His Gun” by Dalton Trumbo, the main character Joe Bonham was drafted into World War 1. During the war Joe’s trench, along with almost everything inside, was terminated. Joe suffered the tragic loss of both legs, arms and all five of his senses from the shell. Joe understands first hand that in the moment of death the single thought racing through his broken and destroyed body is “I want to live”.

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961 Words | 4 Pages

In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, Dallas Winston is known as the tough no-good hood who loves to do bad things, and though it was clear at times throughout the novel that he started trouble and could be rough, it was also made clear through his actions that there was another side to him. This other side of Dallas cared about his friends and would go through a bunch of trouble to make sure they would be alright. Three most memorable times Dallas shows this care are when he gives Ponyboy some new clothes and gives Johnny and Pony a gun and some money to have as they run away so they don’t get caught by the cops, when Dallas risks his life to go back into the burning church to pull Johnny out of the window, and in the end, when Johnny passes away, Dallas gets himself shot by the police because he didn’t want to live without Johnny, who was the only thing Dallas loved. This all together is why

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582 Words | 3 Pages

Mary Lonergan Mr. Pellerin AP Literature January 1, 2023 Johnny Got his Gun Essay In this excerpt from Daniel Trumbo’s Johnny Got his Gun, Joe struggles with his decision to fish with his friend, Bill, instead of his father. Through this seemingly insignificant decision, Trumbo illustrates the shifting nature of Joe’s relationship with his father as Joe enters adolescence and begins to rely more on the company of his peers. To emphasize this shift, Trumbo divulges carefully selected details that provide information about the characters’ lives and personalities. Furthermore, the author also chooses to write in limited third-person perspective, so the reader primarily has insight into Joe’s thoughts and emotions.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.

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583 Words | 3 Pages

In the short passage from Dalton Trumbo’s novel Johnny Got His Gun, Trumbo uses three key techniques to characterize the relationship between the young man and his father. The use of point of view, details such as; symbolism, and the sentence structure of the novel, help conclude that the son and the father have a close relationship. The point of view of this novel helps characterize the son and father’s relationship. The novel was written through the son’s point of view becoming 3rd person limited, but there are parts in the novel where Trumbo revels the dad’s words.

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761 Words | 4 Pages

War and its affinities have various emotional effects on different individuals, whether facing adversity within the war or when experiencing the psychological aftermath. Some people cave under the pressure when put in a situation where there is minimal hope or optimism. Two characters that experience

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This is a reflection of who Joe was in the beginning of the book, where he was just another kid with no worries. It is ironic because of who Joe has developed into and what he's been through. However, by the end of the chapter, Joe is portrayed as a child who is dependent on his parents to bring him back home. His young age is an obstacle but it also provides some protection as he would be tried as a juvenile and no one really suspects him. 13-year-old Joe is already making well-advanced decisions that no regular 13-year-old would be making at this age.

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Personal investment exposed through Johnny Got His Gun and Shenandoah As a human, being personally invested in what you do is high on the importance scale. Writers have analyzed the theme of personal investment in literature and movies. A book that explores this theme is a World War I story, Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo. It takes in consideration the realizations of a young soldier, Joe, on what he truly believes is worth fighting for.

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As discussed, Joe tried to get justice for his mother, but that wasn’t enough for him, not when there were others on the reservation who weren’t receiving any type of equity on the attacks against them, and so once again he took matters into his own hands, but this time he decided to do it the right way. Joe already had influence from his father since he was a lawyer as well, but the reader can easily assume that the main reason he decided to become a lawyer was because of his mothers attack. The idea of justice will forever be in the back of Joe’s head because of the events that occurred when he was just a boy, but even after everything thing that happened, he decided to make the most of

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

Hidden somewhere within the blurred lines of fiction and reality, lies a great war story trapped in the mind of a veteran. On a day to day basis, most are not willing to murder someone, but in the Vietnam War, America’s youth population was forced to after being pulled in by the draft. Author Tim O’Brien expertly blends the lines between fiction, reality, and their effects on psychological viewpoints in the series of short stories embedded within his novel, The Things They Carried. He forces the reader to rethink the purpose of storytelling and breaks down not only what it means to be human, but how mortality and experience influence the way we see our world. In general, he attempts to question why we choose to tell the stories in the way

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728 Words | 3 Pages

In the passage from the novel Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Trumbo tells the story of a young boy named Joe and his father, who have a very close relationship. They each love to do the same things, but Joe thinks it is time to experience life on his own. Trumbo uses techniques such as Joe’s point of view, imagery, and unquoted dialogue to illustrate the strong relationship between Joe and his father. First, Trumbo uses third person limited point of view to only share the main character’s thoughts throughout the story.

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587 Words | 3 Pages

Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo’s novel, “Johnny Got His Gun” tells all about a father and son relationship that many people may envy for. Trumbo characterizes their relationship with a respectful tone, yet Trumbo also makes the love and trust the father and son share very apparent throughout the novel. Trumbo is able utilize literary devices such as third person point of view and a lack of formal punctuation, using syntax to help the reader have a better perspective on the relationship the father and son partake in.

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