Johnny Got His Gun by James Dalton Trumbo is one of the most well-known anti-war novels of the 20th century. The work is a shout-out to the politicians, who think that they have a right to gamble people’s lives by starting wars. Otto von Bismarck once said: “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election,” and James Dalton Trumbo’s novel proves that. The society often talks about obligations, dignity, the warrior’s code of honor and what not, but they rarely speak about a price of it, which is – by the way – a human’s life. Johnny Got His Hun should be included on a list of the most passionate novels that promote pacifism.
Even the title of the novel seems to mock faux romanticism of a military life. They used to say “Johnny get your gun” to inspire young men to join the army. The protagonist of the story, Joe Bonham, is one of those who get their guns and look what the consequences of it are. He gets caught in the blast of the exploding artillery shell, but manages to survive. That is the moment when his luck ends. He loses two arms, two legs, the largest part of his face which includes eyes, a nose, all his teeth and a tongue. What kind of a life it is? How does it correspond with the ethic? Joe becomes even more desperate as soon as he realizes that he can’t put an end to his suffering by himself. However, a human’s spirit is strong enough to adjust even to this excuse of a life. Joe’s mind is as free as ever, his dreams and thoughts become the source of his strengths. Dalton Trumbo doesn’t forget to depict the effect of long-lasting isolation on a person. Being unable to speak and hear, he is genuinely tormented. So, the man starts looking for ways to communicate with the outside world. Later on, it turns out to be that the struggles to find a common language are less problematic than his interlocutors’ unwillingness to understand him. In spite of the fact that the whole story is heart-wrenching and disturbing, there is once scene which evokes a feeling of despair, anger and revulsion at the whole mankind. The moment when the doctors start giving Joe drugs to make his stop thinking, thus talking to them. They have already robbed him of a normal life and now they want to leave him in the complete darkness.
Joe’s story should be taught in every class of every school on the planet Earth, so that our children could learn that there is nothing good, inspiring, noble in a war. People could be tricked into believing that a military solution is the only one, but that is the very last resort. Let’s show the future generations the true face of the violence before they get a chance to learn in on their own experience. Even though Joe is a fictional character, there are many men and women just like him, those who once thought that they perform their duty and are left alone to rot by the politicians and the society now.
