Johnny Got His Gun 'And Shenandoah'

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Loss: a word defined by google as “the fact or process of losing something or someone”. In the novel “Johnny Got His Gun” written by Donald Trumbo and the film “Shenandoah” directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, loss is something the characters in each plot frequently experience. The definition states that losing someone or something qualifies as loss, this specifically relates to both the film and the novel. In “Johnny Got His Gun”, the main character Joe experiences a considerable amount of physical, mental and emotional loss from the result of war that proves to be detrimental to his overall quality of life. Throughout the course of the novel, Joe experiences loss of his limbs, loss of his belongings, loss of his communication, and even loss of …show more content…
In the novel “Johnny Got His Gun” and the film “Shenandoah”, both Charlie and Joe experience severe mental losses that are extremely detrimental to their overall well-being. In the novel, Joe experiences a major mental loss by losing his capability determine his current life and his flashbacks, as well as losing his sanity at different parts throughout the plot. When Joe really experiences loss in his mental state is when he is unable to know what’s real and what’s not. This is very hard and confusing to him because he relive his past and thinks he is in the present, or he thinks he is dreaming when he is not. The telephone ringing is the first trigger introduced in the novel, it reminds him of when he got the call that his dad was dead, and so the ringing triggers many painful flashbacks for Joe. He also hallucinates and thinks he hears the phone ringing even when it is not. “He was sick and probably out of his head and he was badly hurt and he was lonesome deaf but he was also alive and he could still hear far away and sharp the sound of a telephone bell” (Trumbo 11). This quote shows how Joe has lost his stable mental state by not being able to distinguish reality from his flashbacks and hallucinations. This is very detrimental to Joe’s well-being because he struggles with connecting to reality and his actual life. Joe also suffers from mental loss by losing his sanity. When Joe gets his arms cut …show more content…
The protagonists in each plot, Charlie and Joe, experience many events that shape their character and much of the plot. Joe’s experiences are directly in the war because he was a fighting soldier that became injured in duty, and Charlie is a man that is living on the outside of the war with his family, that suffered from the consequences of ignoring the war around him until it was too late. Each of their experiences are very different yet they all lead back to a common theme. Neither of them understood why they had to be a part of the war, and how it was their supposed responsibility to fight in it, yet they both suffered from the brutality of war due to the tricks government played on them. There is still war happening today, and still people suffering from all different types of loss. The men and women that choose to fight need to be educated on what they are fighting for and why they are fighting for it before they lose as much as Charlie and Joe did. Both of these characters are a prime example of the result of war and how it affects the lives of people in and around it. Physical, emotional, and mental loss all affect the overall well-being of one after war, and the government needs to make sure that soldiers are aware of this before they suffer from consequences they do not deserve or are not
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