In The Film Shenandoah And Johnny Got His Gun And Johnny Got His Gun

To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who

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 is often misinterpreted as an exciting occurrence filled with glory and acts of terrific heroism. In reality, it is brutal and serves as an effective simulation of hell. Timothy Findley's The Wars depicts an inhumane world where individuals are taken out of their elements and are forced to struggle to hold onto their humanity amidst the horrors. The lack of rules in war targets and destroys every aspect of what it means to be human. It heavily interferes with one's motivations, desires and purpose of living. The war also targets one's innocence and brings about suffering both physically and mentally.

Dalton Trumbo, author of Johnny Got His Gun, is known for his unique style of writing. Many acclaimed authors of books such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have a formal writing style , on the other hand, Trumbo’s is informal. It consists of short sentences and punctuation techniques. This writing style is what sets Trumbo apart from others because this writing style is difficult to execute and it is hard to apply to other works of literature. His book, Johnny Got His Gun has won the award for “National Award for Most Original Book”. This book is about a soldier named Joe who has become handicapped after a bomb blast and experiences flashbacks which reflect back onto his past and present time. The authors’ style of writing affects the way a reader interprets the story through the use of literary elements and literary devices. Fine

When most people of think of war, they generally think of the glorified aspects. Love and violence. Or perhaps their minds are drawn to an image of a soldier’s homecoming: A father embracing his son, crying tears of joy, all while the solider relays his experiences of the war among celebratory decorations. He is now considered a hero. But what difficulties has he faced to get there? This is the side of war that many of us don’t recognize. In the memoir, A Long Way Gone, author and protagonist, Ishmael Beah, experiences civil war and its effects first hand when he is forced into becoming a child soldier in the poor third world country of Sierra Leone. As the novel progresses, Ishmael becomes increasingly addicted to drugs,

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, maintained the theory that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Plato, who lived from 427 BCE to 347 BCE, experienced a lifetime filled with war and expanding empires. Although Plato remained a philosopher, rather than a soldier, he chose to acknowledge the loss and destruction following war. Plato’s theory of “only the dead have seen the end of war,” means one will see the end of war only in death because if one may survive war, one will never be able to tell when the next shall begin. Both Dalton Trumbo's novel Johnny Got His Gun and Universal's film Shenandoah tell the story of two seemingly different characters, Joe Bonham and Charlie Anderson, who in a like manner, undergo loss and

In the beginning of the novel the boys are at war yet there return marks a change in the family dynamic. Gabriel has plans for the family in California, symbolic of the American Dream, but when the boys return from the war they bring an agenda of their own. In the season of their return they simply drink all night and cultivate a spirit of apathetic disappointment from their parents. “My mother worried about them almost as much as she had when they were at war, but she said nothing. As long as they were back she was happy.

War can be and has been proven to be a deeply scarring experience for many soldiers. Evidently, nothing can prepare them for warfare, seeing close friends die, and narrowly escaping death themselves. Yet, the worst part of it all is having to live with those memories for a lifetime and the inability to forget. “But the thing about remembering is that you don 't forget” (O’brien 34, 1998). The war which is fought in the minds of soldiers lasts a lifetime, and its effects stretch far beyond the actual battle that is being fought. War can significantly affect a soldier mentally, as seen in the novel “The things they carried” by Tim O 'brien, an interview with Richard Dlugoz, and the poem “Coming Home” by Joe Wheeler.

War has brought this upon the Anderson family. If war did not occur in their lives, they would not have to deal with recovering from such a horrible tragedy. Charlie is also having a very hard time accepting how his family and himself had to go to war. If Boy never got involved, none of this would ever happen. He can not accept that he let this happen to his

The Collier brothers show how families can be torn apart by war by using a full paragraph describing how father is telling Sam all of the bad things that can come with being a soldier. “Have you ever seen a dear friend lying in the grass with the top of his skull off and his brains sliding out of it like wet oats?”He is saying this because he loves Sam and does not want him to get hurt during war. Father and Sam are fighting, tearing them apart. This shows how families can be torn apart by war.

The effects of this issue are further reflected upon in Tim O’Brien’s war story The Things They Carried, where Vietnam War era veteran O’Brien narrates his fictional account of the war and its effects on its combatants as a way to cope with the inflicted grief and regret of battle. Throughout the story and through other veterans’ accounts, it is evident how storytelling can be an effective medium to assuage these mental effects of war on a veteran. Most prominently, war’s effects on soldiers are mainly physical with disabilities causing a lasting effect on those who once fought and now wish to adapt to civilian life. However, the idea of not being able to adapt completely lies with the lesser known effects of war inflicted disabilities, with PTSD mentally scarring soldiers for periods of their life and depression following suit. Like how hospitals and bandages heal bullet wounds, O’Brien proves how writing and storytelling serve as remedies to patch up the mental wounds caused by war.

War. At times it may be a beneficial concept and at other times it seems like an idea that should ever happen. More often than not war is a brutal thing that leads to unnecessary death of multiple people who deserve more than what war has given them. And the consequences that come in result of war lead to more emotional and physical tear than most people need to suffer in a lifetime. The theme of consequences of war is present in both the book Johnny Got His Gun and the movie Shenandoah through the representation of loss, physical,mental and psychological turmoil, and the reality that war can never be undone. The novel Johnny Got His Gun is based on the story about a young soldier named Joe Bonham who experienced a traumatic event when he

To the rest of the world Joe was like a machine, he was fed, bathed, clothed, and was being taken care of by other people. But this did not stop him from being able to think. Joe may not look like a person, but he still could think like one and he was very observant to sounds and vibrations. Joe uses the shadows and patterns of heat that he could feel to tell the time of day, for instance he said “Give me some idea of when the sunrise is coming and then I’ll be able to catch it.”(132). Joe used the resources around him to help learn how to figure out simple tasks that we normally would take for granted. Joe did not want to lay around for the rest of his life. He was pleading for someone to help him do daily tasks that are sometimes taken for granted. Additionally, in “The Living” half of the book, Joe invested all of his time in continuing to keep on tapping. Most days he wanted to just give up considering how draining it was, but all he could think about was the end result and “SOS. Help” (163). Most people would have just given up when they got to the point that Joe was at, but he thought of clever and unique ways to communicate with everyone. When he got an idea he knew would work, that is all he invested his time into. Joe had more dedication and perseverance than the average bear and that helped him be able to communicate and achieve his goal. Physically and mentally Joe

Before World War I, many Americans have had a positive image of the war. Men would go to war, return with honor and come back to their regular lives among the others. In Johnny got his gun, a book by Dalton Trumbo published in 1939, was inspired by an article he had read back then about a soldier who had lost all of his limbs. From the perspective of the protagonist, Joe Bonham, a First World War soldier who had suffered a severe injury and lost most of his senses, Trumbo uses literary techniques such as symbolism, rhetorical questions, and imagery to challenge the reasons for war.

War takes place all around the world. Ishmael Beah, the author of “The Making, and Unmaking, of a Child Soldier,” unfortunately experienced fighting in the Sierra Leone civil war as an eleven year old boy. The fighting and killing Ishmael witnessed was gruesome and painful to look at. The effects war has on one person are so strong that some can never recover. The world needs to realize how big of a contribution men are sacrificing to fight in war.