Johnny Got His Gun

“[Y]ou got a thick slice of sweet bermuda onion and put it between two slabs of bread and butter and nobody anywhere in the world had anything more delicious to eat.”

In this passage, Joe recollects the food he used to eat at home as a child. On one level his recollection is a reminder of his domestic, peaceful life before the war. On another level, the recollection of delicious good food highlights Joe’s inability to ever eat such food again or be back with the people who made it.

“He’s down in bed and can’t say anything and it’s his tough luck and we’re tired and this is a stinking war so anyhow so let’s cut the damn thing off and be done with it.”

Joe here imagines the discussion between the surgeons that leads to his arm being amputated. The passage reflects Joe’s utter helplessness, as he’s “down in bed and can’t say anything” and therefore left at the mercy of the medical establishment. The response of the surgeons emphasizes how de-sensitized they have become, as they refer to Joe’s arm as a “damn thing” and regard the amputation as something merely bothersome to perform instead of traumatic for their patient. The passage illustrates how Joe is dehumanized throughout the novel by both the medical and military authorities.

“Your legs are stuck in concrete and you can’t move a muscle.”

After a pleasant dream where Joe imagines floating on a river with his lover, Kareen, he has a nightmare where he is drowning close to the surface of that river and unable to save himself. The dream reflects Joe’s dawning realization that he has lost his legs as well as his arms, while also reflecting his deeper fear of being kept in a state of living death.

“One guy had the whole top of his stomach shot away so they took the skin and meat from a dead man and they made a flap over the first guy’s stomach. They could lift the flap like a window and watch him digest his food.”

Joe here describes some of the injuries during the war and treatments for them that he had heard about. His story about the stomach flap is significant because it shows how severely-injured soldiers like Joe are often reduced to scientific curiosities in the novel, further dehumanizing them. The passage is also significant because it highlights how, for the doctors, alimentation is a mere biological process, easily stripped of its human meaning and context. The doctors’ clinical attitude towards alimentation stands in marked contrast to Joe’s pre-war memories of lovingly prepared meals enjoyed within social contexts.

“Sitting on his neck and chewing away at his face was a fat contented rat.”

Joe here recalls a dead Prussian officer he and his company found one day in a trench being eaten by a rat. The memory provokes in Joe a primordial terror of becoming “meat” for another creature and prefigures his own dream about being molested by a rat. The rat here also symbolizes the loss of life caused by the war and the way death does not discriminate between uniforms or nationalities.

“[H]e was a good man and an honest man. He kept his children together and they ate good fine food rich food better food than people ate in the cities.”

This passage marks Joe’s changing assessment of his father, who was always considered a “failure” by other people due to his poverty. In recognizing that his father had many excellent qualities and provided his children with love and care, Joe starts to reject the materialism and militaristic values of his society in favor of the more simple and humane values his father represents.

“[W]hat kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty?”

In one of the novel’s most significant moments, Joe questions the abstract ideals often invoked as justifications for war, such as “liberty.” In interrogating “what kind,” “how much,” and “whose idea of liberty” soldiers are asked to kill and die for, Joe begins to formulate his objections to war propaganda and to the cynical misuses of high-sounding ideals for ignoble ends.

“They died crying in their minds like little babies [. . .] they died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife.”

One of Joe’s ways of debunking the ideological justifications given for the war is via a thought experiment. He claims that if ideals such as “liberty” or “democracy” were truly as important as those defending the war suggest they are, then soldiers in their dying moments would think about these lofty ideals or about their nation. Instead, Joe recalls that they will mostly shrink back in terror and think about a parental figure or loved one. Joe’s thoughts also undermine the idea of war as something “manly” or “glorious” by suggesting that mortal wounds and fear in fact infantilize soldiers and force them to regress to a more childlike state.

“What the hell did it matter if you didn’t have a nose so long as you could smell the dawn? He lay without nostrils and he sniffed. He caught the smell of dew on grass and he shivered because it was so delicious.”

In this passage Joe has just worked out a way to tell one day from the next and to ascertain when it is dawn. His regaining of a sense of time provokes rapture in Joe, which is given poetic expression in his description of the sights, sounds and smells of an idyllic sunrise over his hometown. Joe’s reverie suggests that, now that he is able to keep track of time, he can feel more connected with other humans and is no longer totally alone. His mental retreat back to his hometown also emphasizes his continuing attachment to his pre-war life and his valorization of simple, everyday pleasures.

“He always squirmed to let her know he was pleased to see her and she patted him on the stomach.”

Following his mastery of time, Joe starts to pay more attention to his nurses and develops closer bonds with them, further deepening his re-established sense of connection with the outside world. Joe’s “squirm[ing]” reveals his renewed desire to communicate and his gradual adaptation to his new circumstances. However, his “squirm[ing]” also indicates that these interactions are still limited and infantilized, and in some way mirror the relationship between a baby and its carer.

“His mind was wailing I wish to god I was in America I wish I was home.”

Having established his place within time, Joe now wishes to establish his place in space and know where he is. Based on the circumstances preceding his injury, he conjectures that he is in a hospital in England or an English hospital in France. This realization leads to his intense longing to be back in America and amongst other Americans, but his feelings here are not ultimately rooted in nationalism, but in a desire to be back “home”—back in a place where his identity is recognized and where he can find the meaningful human connections he has now lost.

“Hun was raising quite a stink.”

Joe is here relaying the story of “Lazarus,” a Prussian soldier who was shot near the British trenches but whose body could not be moved despite repeated attempts to shoot it down and even bury it. The use of the derogatory nickname “Hun” reflects the language of anti-German war propaganda, while also emphasizing the dead soldier’s enemy nationality. The memory of the soldier also mirrors Joe’s present predicament of existing in a liminal state between death and life, of being dead but somehow still present.

“She was stroking it in a way that she had never done before. He felt pity in the softness of her touch.”

After Joe works out that he can try communicating via Morse code by tapping his shoulders and neck against his bed, the attitude of the nurses seems to change toward him. They become more tender and even sensual. Joe’s experience of sympathetic and even erotic touch from the nurses decreases his isolation and illustrates the deepening connection between him and the women who care for him.

“Anyone looking down at him would have no way of suspecting that beneath the mask and the mucus there lay insanity as naked and cruel and desperate as insanity could ever be [. . .] He understood the overpowering impulse to kill without having a reason for killing.”

As his tapping is ignored by the medical staff, Joe feels that his slender grasp on sanity is slipping. However, his inner turmoil is concealed by the mask on his face, which makes his existence “acceptable” to onlookers. The mask conceals the hatred and bloodlust which has boiled up within him, but more importantly, it also conceals the true results of war from others.

“They died soon there was no one there to take care of them to make sure the breath of life stayed in their bodies as long as possible.”

In this passage, Joe reflects on all the slaves and “little men” throughout history who have been imprisoned and tormented by higher authorities. Joe concludes that his situation is worse than theirs because at least in their cases they were allowed to die. In contrast, Joe is kept alive—and in torment—against his will. Joe’s fixation on the political and social helplessness of “little men” also reflects his growing frustrations with the authorities that have inflicted, and continue to inflict, unjust suffering upon him.

“[T]hat thing up there in the room that thing is always tapping its head. I get nervous I think it needs something.”

Joe here imagines what one of the nurses might be saying to a doctor in response to Joe’s repeated tapping. Coming shortly after a moment of tenderness and erotic connection between Joe and one of the nurses, this comment reflects Joe’s ambivalent relationship towards those who care for him: he craves their affection but is also ashamed of it, fearing that they ultimately see him as a “thing” instead of a human being.

“When the prodding was over the doctor took the tube from his throat and he had a little fit of strangling like he always had when they took the tube out to clean it.”

In this passage, a doctor tries to ascertain what is causing Joe to keep tapping. The doctor does not suspect that the tapping is an attempted form of communication, and instead assumes that it must be a mere physical reaction caused by some discomfort. This assumption leads the doctor to remove and check Joe’s breathing tube, causing Joe pain. The doctor’s behavior once again illustrates the indifference of the doctor—and the medical establishment more generally—to Joe’s plight, stressing the fact that they do not really see him as human.

“They had taken his tapping as a nervous habit as a disease as the whim of a child as a symptom of insanity as anything but what it really was as anything but a cry from the darkness a voice from the dead”

At this part of the novel, a new nurse has just traced out “Merry Christmas” on Joe’s chest, and Joe contrasts her attitude towards him with that of all the other staff at the hospital. The new nurse’s willingness to communicate and her sensitivity to his own attempts at “speaking” emphasize her empathy: while others dismissed and pathologized Joe’s tapping, she sees it for what it is. The nurse’s recognition that the tapping is not a “nervous habit” but Morse code leads to the final confrontation between Joe and the authorities in the novel.

“Look at him and then let us ask you this isn’t even more wonderful than all the splendid operations we have performed upon his stump?”

Joe here imagines that, having discovered his ability to communicate via Morse code and his “tapping,” the hospital staff will greet this development with fanfare and acclaim. In anticipating that the medical staff will believe his successful communication is “even more wonderful” than any of the “splendid operations” they performed upon him, Joe reveals his hopes of being recognized and treated once more as a full human being instead of a medical curiosity.

“I think I would like some fudge. Next time you shove grub through that tube stick in a piece of fudge not sugary not too strong of chocolate.”

The man who visits Joe and knows Morse code asks him, “what do you want?” Joe finds the man’s question patronizing and insulting, both because it trivializes his achievement in learning to communicate and because it suggests that there is some desire of his that can be easily met by his interlocutor and the hospital staff. Joe therefore makes a sarcastic reference to wanting” fudge,” knowing that this is impossible for him. His ironic reference to a treat also ties into the wider motif of food and eating that runs throughout the novel, once more drawing attention to the simple joys he is now deprived of due to his injuries.

“Inside me I scream and howl and push and fight for room for air to escape from the smothering. So let me out where I can feel air and sense people. Please let me out so I can have room to breathe in. Let me out of here and take me back into the world.”

Joe here begs the authorities to take him outside and let him be amongst other people again in "the world.” Joe wishes to escape his current prisoner-like situation, but more importantly, he wishes to fully reconnect with the outside world and enjoy human bonding once again. He also wishes to be seen in public so that he can warn others of the true dangers of war, which would give his life a sense of purpose again and perhaps enable him to prevent further conflicts.

“They had only wanted to forget him. He was upon their conscience so they had abandoned him they had forsaken him.”

The man responds to Joe’s request for release by telling him it is “against regulations” for him to go outside. In this passage, Joe realizes that his entrapment in the hospital does not just serve a medical purpose, but a military one as well: the authorities wish to “forget him” and have “forsaken him” because his condition is an unwelcome reminder of what the results of war truly are. In keeping Joe out of sight, the military can both continue to control public perceptions of the war and avoid confronting their own “conscience” over what they have done to ordinary soldiers like Joe.

“He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky.”

After a doctor injects Joe with morphine to stop him from protesting the denial of his request for release, Joe imagines himself as a new Christ and has a vision of the future. He has a vision of another war, which will be even more brutal and destructive than the First World War. The airplane in this passage symbolizes the misuse of modern technology, in which the airplane is used as a force of destruction instead of as a means of bringing people and nations closer together in peace.