Johnny Got His Gun Literary Devices

There’s only so much we can learn about a newly found acquaintance if we only have a brief overview about him or her. The same can be applied to any written work we consider. Anyone is able to get the basics of a character, but nothing thoroughly explains his or her actions and thoughts like a well-developed flashback. These are literary devices some authors use to provide background relating to the persona being analyzed, as well as expand the lector’s comprehension of what’s going on at that point in the text. These are often seen in Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, a tale that details the life and struggles of a young soldier named Joe Bonham, who suffered a serious injury in the battlefield during the First World War. The use of flashbacks

To begin, these brief revivals of the past help the reader make sense of the character’s terrified response to a particular event. In the novel, Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo reveals the many thoughts Joe Bonham has as he struggles to accept the loss of his limbs. While he daydreams about his love towards a “special someone,” Joe murmured and realizes, “Kareen in my arms. Both of them… I haven’t got any arms Kareen. My arms are gone,” which demonstrates how remembering their final moments together made his wound discovery even more horrifying and difficult to accept (Trumbo 38). Joe was reliving the moment when he and his girlfriend, Kareen, shared one last hug before he was sent to the war front. She worried that he would get severely injured if he left, so begged him to embrace her as an act of reassurance. Now that his arms are gone due to a bomb explosion during battle, Joe thinks he not only will ever be able to hug Kareen to show his affection towards her- it would also confirm her fear of his leaving in the first place. All of these

In the novel described before, the author describes how Joe, the protagonist, relies on his past memories as a source of hope to ease his suffering. When Joe was informed that Christmas time had come the same year he lost most of his body parts, he recalled, “It was so warm so secure so comforting to be home on christmas eve… here was a place in the wilderness a place forever safe that could never be changed could never be harmed could never be intruded upon,” comforting Joe and giving him a new sense of hope thank to his past experiences (Trumbo 202). When a nurse manages to “tell” Joe that she wishes him a Merry Christmas, he remembers how he used to celebrate this holiday with his family. The cozy environment made him feel safe and think it could never be altered, resulting in the full preservation of this extremely cherished memory. If Christmas repeats year after year, this makes Joe believe that, one day, he’ll be able to re-enjoy that moment with his loved ones. This also adds to the likeliness of re-obtaining his physical members, since he needs them to be able to interact with his close relatives. Even readers can understand what he went through: everyone begins to miss someone they care about after a newfound barrier threatens to destroy a once inseparable relationship. Likewise, when he realized that he was missing both his limbs and