Johnny Got His Gun Analysis

This could also mean that Charlie has no trust in Konala and feels no close ties to her. The transformation of Charlie’s feeling towards Konala that has occurred by the end of the story is a very large one. By the end of the duo’s journey together back to civilization Charlie states that, “in Konala’s company he knew a unity that he had previously felt only with members of his bombing crew” (Mowat 182). Previously in the story when Charlie mentions his bombing crew, he reflects upon his memories with them fondly and remembers how close they were. This kind of kinship makes sense because in any kind of war zone the people on a team essentially trust their lives to one another. That is a bond close enough to rival those of the same blood. Therefore when Charlie uses this analogy of his bombing crew to describe his feeling for Konala by the end of their journey it show just how much he has changed is opinion of her. He now views Konala as someone that he can trust with his life and have close ties to.

There were many psychosocial and environmental factors that Charlie faced for axis 4. One of these environmental factors would be that he still lives in the house that he lived in with his family. This is what caused the flashback of his family. Another factor is the loss of his career. He used to be a successful practicing dentist. He now has no career and lives off of settlement money and money from the government. He has very little social interaction. He doesn’t confide any of his feelings in friends. All of these things cause distress and impairment in Charlie’s life.

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.

After the operation, in only a couple of months, Charlie starts showing signs of new intelligence. His grammar, improved, and he is able to reflect on what his does in the past something he wasn’t able to do before. He had finally gotten something use had always desired. Then, everything and everyone turned on him. In “PROGRESS REPORT 12” April 30th (pg. 60) Charlie writes: “now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What in the name of god do they want of me? They’ve driven me out of the factory. Now I more alone than ever before…” Charlie got what he always wanted, and now he lost everything he had. It was a sacrifice it sounded like he didn’t want to make. I can tell just be the tone of his writing. This shows that we should embrace everything that we have. Charlie didn’t embrace everything, although he appreciated most of the thing he never became happy not being able to just enjoy life as it is.

First, the reader must understand just what makes a good "war story". The protagonist of the novel, Tim O'Brien, gives us his

In his book The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam, Andrew Wiest tells the story of a combat company through the collected interviews of the veterans and their family members. Charlie Company, 4th Battalion of the 47th Infantry of the 9th Division in Vietnam began as a diverse group of young men. From lower class to middle class, consisting of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and a Native American. These men were trained and sent to a war in their formative years, many had wives with children or children on the way. Charlie Company’s stint in the Vietnam War would transform these impressionable young men and challenge their hearts and souls. From Andrew Wiest’s book The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam, we can glimpse into what it was like to be a citizen turned soldier in Vietnam.

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

Often the idea of war can be misleading. In many instances, war is seen as glorious and honorable. Many times people do not see the dark side and the true horrors of war. The novel Johnny got his Gun and the classic movie Shenandoah contradict these common beliefs through the thoughts and actions of the main characters. Joe is a man in the novel who lost his limbs, eyesight, hearing, and ability to talk due to war.

Because Charlie was not aware of the true reality of war, he was not prepared for the possible effects of saving boy. In the end, Charlie realizes in the end through the loss of his two kids that “politicians always talk about the glory of it. And old men talk about the need of it. And the soldiers wanna go home.” Similar to Joe from Johnny Got His Gun, Charlie realizes through the consequences of war that war is really

"Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? " asked the British philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1930. Whatever the reason may be, propaganda is successful with Joe, who may not be able to locate France on a map, but who has certainly heard about how nasty those Germans are. In Johnny Got His Gun, Joe is not happy that he was duped into fighting a war that has nothing to do with him; he now wants to show people what war is actually like and what its real costs are. Why was he manipulated, to begin with?

This helped to lead them to having to have some form of a personal influence to the battle before getting involved. In the context of Johnny Got His Gun, Joe went into the battle with no personal involvement because he was drafted into the war. he really did not want to go into the war, but he was selected and forced to go into the conflict. He was pulled in by the stream of propaganda that was flooded into his mind. This shaped not only how he ended up thinking of the war, but also how much he was actually personally involved in the war.

I think that Charley was thinking about war in a whole different way that it actually happened, because he wasn't prepared for what he really needed to be prepared for..In Charley’s hometown, residents are talking about what they think will be a “shooting war”. The atmosphere at town meetings is festive, with flags, drums & patriotic speeches. Everyone assumes that the north will win easily, with the fighting unlikely to last more than a month or two. As a volunteer army is beginning to form, Charley decides to join, over his mother's objections.

Though it was tempting, Joe did not try to run away from his responsibilities in the war, he faced them. This is because his parents taught him to do what he was supposed to do. Joe’s father was a strong role model for Bill Bonham portrayed the values of a true American man back in the day. This shaped Joe to be a hardworking man who really never gives up a fight. Joe worked long and hard to get someone to listen to him through morse code after the war was finished. Not only did Joe not find value in the war but also he didn't even know what he was fighting for. Being drafted into the war is a system for selecting young men for compulsory military service, administered in the United States by the Selective Service System. This means that Joe was picked to fight for his country in a war randomly, and he was forced to do it otherwise punished and brought to jail. Usually, when one would join the war or go into it, they would do it for a reason and with a passion. Joe struggled on multiple occasions on trying to figure out what it is that was fighting for. Sure he had a good job, a good relationship, the power of his parents --- almost the perfect life. He could have been fighting for all of that, yet he didn’t. Joe is a character who values his independence. Before he went to war, Joe adored spending time with his family and friends -- just surrounding himself with a ton of loving people. He liked to work hard and own up for what he did wrong. He puts value into being an

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

War and battle have a long lasting effect on everyone, from soldiers to families. This effect is mental, physical, and emotional. In the book, Johnny Got His Gun, a young man named Joe Bonham is drafted in World War I and tragically needs all of his limbs amputated and loses his sight, hearing and ability to talk. The movie, Shenandoah, is about a large family living on their ranch when they end up in the middle of the Civil War. Joe Bonham and Charlie Anderson go through extreme losses throughout the course of the novel and movie due to the wars they were involved in. Although Joe Bonham and Charlie Anderson experience very different types of extreme loss, the characters offer similar pictures of loss can affect someone mentally, physically, and emotionally.