Because Joe and Charlie have a similar sense of loss as a consequence of getting involved in a war, they came to the same conclusion that the soldiers who fight the war are never the ones who win. When Joe went to war he believed all of the propaganda that people told him, and thought that he was fighting for democracy, liberty, and other words. However, after fighting and being injured in the war, Joe realized that he did not understand what any of those words meant. He felt like he was tricked into fighting and risked his life and health for what other people wanted: “You’re worth nothing dead except for speeches. Don’t let them kid you any more. Pay no attention when they tap you on the shoulder and say come along we’ve got to fight for
In the wise words of Charlie Anderson, “[I]f we don’t try, we don’t do. And if we don’t do, why are we here on this Earth?” Charlie Anderson is the protagonist in the movie Shenandoah, who lives with his six sons, Jacob, James, John, Nathan, Henry, and Boy, and his daughter, Jennie. Charlie Anderson is the type of person who responds to everything by trying and giving it his all, but only if it concerns him. The movie takes place during the Civil war, which occurs near their family farm and Charlie’s intent was to stay neutral because he felt that the war did not concern him, until his youngest son, Boy, was mistaken for a union soldier and taken by the confederate army. Charlie ventures off with five of his sons and his daughter, while James and his wife, Ann, and their baby stay back at the house. Along the way, tragedy strikes the family, affecting them in ways that cannot be undone. The protagonist in the novel Johnny Got his Gun, Joe Bonham, was drafted into the war and greatly injured as a result. Joe experiences a loss of his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and limbs. The only thing that Joe is left with is a working brain and very little ways to communicate with the outside world. As the novel progresses, Joe faces an immense amount of internal conflict and struggles with the effects that war has on him. Although both Charlie and Joe experience the harsh impacts of war, they respond to them in quite different ways.
War turns people into their worst selves. Tim Meeker debates whether he’s a Patriot or a loyalist. In My Brother Sam is Dead, Tim experiences injustice, war, and death. Tim chooses if he wants to be a loyalist or a Patriot, even though they had done horrible things to his friends and family. At the end of the book, Timmy decides to be neutral because of the ironic deaths that war has brought, such as Ned, Life, and Sam.
In a different fashion, Charlie is also similarly thrusted upon the knowledge that his way of life has been negatively affected by the war. While working on the farm like any other day, the neighbors slave, Gabriel, who was spending time with his son Boy, came with inauspicious news that Boy had been taken by Union soldiers. Here Charlie learns that his son who meant so much to him because he was born the day his wife died, has been taken which puts an immediate stop to his thinking that everything is okay. This further promits him, like Joe, to go and search for Boy who represents the past and normal life that has been taken away by war. Even though Joe and Charlie find out what the war has taken from them in unmistakably different ways, they both begin searching for a part of their previous life that has been forcibly taken away from them because of war.
At the beginning of the book Joe starts to truly realize how destroyed he is as a man, “My arms are gone. Both of my arms are gone Kareen both of them. They’re gone. They’ve cut my arms off both of my arms. Oh jesus mother god Kareen they’ve cut off both of them. Oh jesus mother god Kareen Kareen Kareen my arms” (38). Just by reading this excerpt, the sad cries and absolute desolation of Joe is apparent through the use of repetition. Trumbo first repeats “my arms are gone” multiple times before switching clearly to repeating “they” and finally to repeating “Kareen”. He does this to powerfully ingrain and fix a dilemma, before placing the blame and then showing how hopeless this situation really is. Trumbo’s use of repetition was very well organized in the sense that they pressed these ideas into the reader by repeating them and highlighting the theme. The last use of repetition serving purposely to show what Joe is emotionally going through by repeating “Kareen”, representing how Joe has become almost like a child, or not in a powerful enough state to do anything about his issue. Trumbo emphasizes the helplessness of being drafted and forced into abhorrent situations again, “He too had been taken away from his home. He too had been put into the service of another without his consent. He too had been sent to a foreign country far from his native parts. He too had been forced to fight against other slaves of his own kind in a strange place” (183). Here, the repetition of he, referring to soldiers but more so just the average man, is repeated here to emphasize how regular people are forced like “slaves” to fight for people who are higher up. This strongly resembles like the quote above, just like a child and their parents earlier, where Joe repeatedly cries out for Kareen like a child begging for help. Really, Dalton does this to show the bigger picture which is how soldiers are
4. What does Country Joe mean when he says “Well, come on mothers throughout the land…pack your boys off to Vietnam…Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box?”
Joe didn’t really understand what his father was saying, because he was new to the experience of evil. He knew that killing people was wrong, but in his mind, there was nothing else that he could do to help his mother and make sure that his family stopped getting attacked. Joe saw that the only way that he could change the situation was to get rid of Linden Lark. Because he would only face the charges of a juvenile, and anyone else in his family would be tried as an adult, he volunteered to do it. If Joe hadn’t killed Linden, there might have been a good outcome. The court could have made him do community service or see a therapist to get better, but he didn’t have the chance before it was too late. Joe had good intentions in that he wanted to help his mother and protect his family, but the outcome was evil because he killed Linden.
Have you ever had a friend who was mean to you and argued with you? Vinny and Joe-Boy are both characters in a story called “The Ravine”. They are best friends who live in Hawaii and go to a ravine to cliff jump and swim. There was a boy who died there two weeks and one day before they arrived. Joe-Boy and Vinny are different in many ways and they are similar in some ways.
Whatever the reason may be, propaganda works with Joe. Although he is unlikely to find France on a map, he is likely to be able to explain in depth how terrible the Germans are because of propaganda. In Johnny Got His Gun, Joe is not happy that he was tricked into fighting a war that has nothing to do with him. Joe desperately wants to show people what war is really like and what the costs of war can be. One of Joe's primary anti-war attitudes is that war is encouraged by class inequality. This means the working class has a tendency to be the one who faces a greater consequence with regards to war, yet they do not benefit by any means. It likewise implies that the masters of war—those with influence and cash—can wage war at any time they want to because they are not the ones who have to fight (Trumbo 241). It is a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight. Joe thinks of the bigger picture: he is saying that one cannot deal with something as big as war without first dealing with the social conditions that make it possible. Joe feels cheated by society because this was not his war and he did not have any reason to join in the first place. In a way, society brainwashed Joe into feeling that this was his war and what war would bring for him.
Bravery is not inherent, it is rather acquired from the circumstances or situation faced in the life. People face lot of problems in their lives and to cope with those situations and move in with one's life is the sheer example of being brave. The same has been depicted by both the authors in their respective books. First by Kaye Gibbons in her very famous book "Ellen Foster" where in the protagonist is shown as homeless girl with no one to take care of, yet she finds a way to live her life and find herself a house worth living. Second, by Mark twain in his
As evidenced from the past tense verb in the title of the novel, Johnny Got His Gun takes as its focus the aftermath of war for a soldier, rather than the optimistic, patriotic prewar time frame upon which other novels—as well as the original song "Johnny Get Your Gun"—focus. Although the novel remains clear about the fact that Johnny received his injuries from an exploding shell, Johnny does not ever think back to combat warfare. The novel takes as its opponent not combat warfare but rather the mentality of warfare and organization of modern warfare by the moneyed classes. Joe's memories related to the war, such as the Lazarus story, or the story of the man with a flap over his stomach, do not directly deal with warfare. Instead, these various memories create a sense of the incomprehensible decay, injury, and pain that result from war. Joe remembers the stories with a wry tone that gives a sense of the absurdity of each of the situations—such as the rumor about the man who lost his face only to return home and die at his wife's hands. In this sense, the use of the war in the text remains true to its use in the title of the novel: the war exists as a precondition for senseless and grotesque injury and
A sequence of events leads up to Joe becoming almost completely isolated from the outside world. During his time in the isolated continent, Joe becomes addicted to narcotics; he escapes his pain and anguish by succumbing to detached and paralyzed state of mind. Throughout his journey in this secluded continent, he is faced with his hatred of the Germans and his desire to enact vengeance upon them for all that he has lost. When he meets a German geologist exploring the frozen tundra, he inadvertently kills him. Joe experiences ironic feelings of remorse after so many years spent obsessing over the destruction of the Germans. There was no gratification or fulfillment, for Joe, in the German man’s death. Joe felt repulsed and an abhorrence in himself for his
In both the novels Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Chbosky’s the perks of being a wallflower, the main characters Holden Caulfield and Charlie are troubled teens. Although they were teenagers in different time periods they shared many similar teenage difficulties. Both novels portray a male protagonist growing up while struggling to find his identity, while loathing their lives. Thus both novels are of the coming of age genre. Both boys are socially awkward and are not able to integrate into society. In this case, Charlie is insulted by senior students of his high school, “God, that kid is such a fucking freak,” (Chbosky 145). Throughout the novel Holden and Charlie strive to become a part of society. While Charlie
In today’s society the majority of the crimes are still being committed by people who have possessed a firearm that has been obtained illegally or without proper permits. That being said there has been a strong push for gun control because of the rise of shootings involving a large group of people such as the Columbine massacre, Virginia Tech shooting and latest Aurora movie theater shooting involving people who have purchased firearms legally. Gun control laws in the United States have been established for many years but to maintain a civilized society with limited crime stronger control laws need to be enforced in which will help reduce crime in our country. Establishing stronger gun control laws will educate
Growing up, there are countless young boys, who have the dream of someday being a professional football or baseball player. Going outside and letting the imagination of being on the big stage and making the final pitch to win the World Series or the final Hail Mary throw to win the Super bowl. As a young kid, the dream of one day being the best and be paid to play a sport they grew up loving and playing. Although the sports of football and baseball are both very popular, there are a substantial amount of differences between
The audience can relate to Joe and feel sympathy for him because he was a good man who did many great things for his family and in the end paid the ultimate price. Towards the end of the play, Joe's son Chris anguishes over the fatally flawed decision made by his father, thus eliciting the sympathy of the audience. However, this is not enough to detract from the audience relating to Joe as a