Johnny Got his Gun 8

What Joe wants he thinks is a no brainer. It isn't like he wants a materialistic item like a yacht or a billion dollars. All he wants is to be back to normal. He wants to have his arms and legs back. He wants to be able to talk and listen and do thinks he used to be able to do. He realizes that the nurses and doctors are not going to be able to give him his legs back or all of the things he used to have, so he changes what he wants. He decides that now he just wants to be able to leave the prison he is in. He wants to feel the air on his face. He realizes that this would cost alot of money for him to survive because he would have to pay for his nurses and have some way to pay for all of his medicine. Then he decided that he would go out and speak against war. People would love to go and and see the messed up man with no face, arms, or legs. They go to the circus and see bearded ladies or other weird people, so they would be exxcited to see a man that is as messed up as he is. He could go out and talk agaisnt war and tell people what they are getting into. This was against regulations because they dont want to let people out and speak against war. Then in the future when there is another war the children will know what they have instore for them and they wont want to fight the war.

Johnny got his gun

Joe has to get sedated because the nurse has no idea why he keeps banging his head against the pillow and assumes that he is in pain and gives him medicine. This medicine made Joe completely out of it, and caused his mind to wonder. While he is drugged up, he begins to think about the women he saw at the train station. She kept asking where her son was because he was given the option of going to jail or the army, but he was too young. Joe then realized that the boy that women was looking for was actually Christ. Then Joe starts talking about playing cards with a bunch of other soldiers. One of the soldiers says he is thirsty, and then all of a sudden a drink appears to him because Christ made it for him. Then the men start thinking about how they are going to die, because for some reason they all knew how and when they were going to die. With this conversation and riding on the train with all of the men who were going to die, Joe felt jealous and upset. He was neither living or dying so he envied these men who could just die. Joe had to live his life full of suffering and just sitting. He wasn't able to live his life, but he couldn't die either. 

Johnny Got His Gun 6

Joe is sitting there and he hears visitors coming by their vibrations. The large group appear to be placing a medal on Joe, and this makes him extremely mad. How can these generals be wasting their time giving me medals, when they could be going out there and helping with the fighting also? He starts rocking back and forth to try and tell them that he doesn't like what they are doing, but they don't understand him. He started thinking, if i can tell the size, and shape of the visitors by their vibrations, what else could i do with them also. That got him thinking about how much communication would help him get through every day. He started tapping because he remembered doing mores code with Bill when they were kids. He felt like he could use his only movement of moving his head back and forth, and create a since of mores code. This was he would also be able to communicate with his nurses, and find out the answers to questions that have been bugging him since he first got there. The second reason he keeps tapping is because if knows if he stops he will just start thinking about other things, and the tapping distracts him from letting his mind wonder.

Johnny Got His Gun 5

Joe was sitting in his hospital bed trying to do a bunch of things and he was getting frustrated. He started doing multiplication problems but once he reached the triple digits he couldn't do them anymore. Then he tried to name all of the planets, and he couldn't do it. He continued to recite many different things, but could never finish any of them. This was really frustrating for him, because his mind was the only thing he had left, and he couldn't even do anything with it because when he wasn't hurt, he didn't pay enough attention. He then figured out that if he could figure out time, he could be connected with everyone again. " If you can keep track of time you can get a hold of yourself and keep yourself in the world but if you lose it why then you are lost too." Obviously, he felt as though time was extremely important because it kept you connected to a world, and if you lost time, then you would know know when and where you are either. His first idea for figuring out time was simply to count the minutes between nurses visits, and then once he got to 24 hours, and he knew how many times the nurse came within those 24 hours, he would figure out how long a day was using nurses visits as his unit. This didn't work because it is basically impossible for someone who is completely healthy to stay awake for 24 hours without loosing count of the seconds, and converting them to minutes. If it was impossible for a healthy person to do this, how in the world was someone as messed up as Joe be able to do it. Then, he figured out a different way that he felt would work better. He figured the only sense he has is the sense of touch, so why not play up that. He decided he would try and figure out when it was sunrise by when his cheek felt a change in temperature. Before doing this, he had to make some assumptions about how many times a day the nurse would come and how often and when she did basic things like give him a bath and change his sheets. These assumptions helped him get on the right track, and finally he could tell when sunrise was, and when a new day started. This made his time fly, because he had something to do with it.

Johnny Got His Gun 4

He believes people should fight for something they can see, feel or pin down, and also it has to be something that is more valuable to them than their life. These too criteria for fighting also have many sides to them. He believes you should fight for something you can see like a woman for example, but when you start fighting for lots of women, you just begin fighting for a word, which is pointless. Also, he says fight for something that is more valuable than your life, but if you are fighting for something to help you live, what is the point of risking your life, because then you won't even be able to experience what you fought for because you are dead. He thinks that you should not fight for words, like freedom, liberty, honor, because what is freedom really, and what is honor. Are these things that are worth more than you existing, and being able to think, and breath, and hug you child, and have fun? The people who are forced to fight these wars of words do not always care about them. When they are on the floor bleeding to death, they are not jumping for joy because they died because of freedom, but they are wishing they could have more time to live and could see their family again. The people who die are worthless after they are dead, and is that really worth anything? These are the sorts of questions Joe is asking himself when it comes to what you should fight for. In the end, Joe decides there is almost nothing worth being dead for.

Johnny Got His Gun 3

Right now, Joe is completely helpless. He has no arms, legs, and there is a huge whole were his face used to be that is festering and beginning to scab. One night a rat comes and starts crawling on him. The rat slowly begins to chew at his skin and open sores. The rat serves as many things. First off, it reminds him that he is completely helpless. The rat is crawling all over him, and biting him, but he cant do anything about getting him off. He tries to rock the rat off, but the rat seems to like that. He has no arms or legs to get the rat off either. Also, the rat gets him thinking about his time fighting, were the rat was the true enemy. The rat was healthy and striving while everyone else around was dieing, and because of all the deaths, the rat grew richer, not caring what side or who he was eating. The rat reminded him of his time fighting. Lastly, the rat represented when he was sleeping or when he was awake. He realized that when he was sleeping was the only time the rat came and visited him, and then when he was awake the nurse was there. Because he had no other way to judge whether he was awake or asleep, the rat helped him with this. The rat overall stands for all the problems Joe is facing right now. It reminds him of his injuries, reminds him how helpless he is, reminds him of his time fighting, and also reminds him that he is in such bad condition, he doesn't even know if he is sleeping or not.

Johnny Got His Gun 2

Joe remembers working at the bakery because he just realized he lost his legs, and he remembers walking around the bakery and walking too the bakery, and at the time he never realized the greatness of walking and legs, but now since he doesn't have legs, he is remembering all of the times he used to use them in great quantities and not think anything of it. He then starts to think about the bakery more, and he remembers Jose. He admires Jose because Jose comes and he listens one time and is able to do all of the work that all of the other mission people do but ten times better. He admires Jose because he comes to the Mission with a goal to make it to Hollywood, and while he is their he tries hard to obtain that goal. Also, most people that go to the mission make up excuses for why they are at the mission. Their stories are always made up of a lie about when they had moeny and they had to get away from it for one reason or another. Because everyone realized they all made op stories, everyone always listened and then forgot about it, and they never questioned them about their stories. When Jose came to the mission, he had a story about a girl who had lots of money who was obsessed with him and because he didn't love her he had to get away. Like al of the other stories, the people at the mission didn't believe him, but they just acceptedit and went on. This was the case until Jose got a letter from the girl, and he didn't know what to do. The people were all extremely jealous that Jose had both the job offer at Hollywood and the true story of why he ran away.