Joshua Minton’s Online Pulpit : BWP on Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

I’m not sure where to start on this one. Normally, I can delve into the theme, character, arcs, and symbolism–blah, blah, blah.

This has been called the most important anti-war book ever written. It was also written by an admitted Socialist (back in the 1930s when Socialism was socially fashionable).

I’m not going to weigh in on that matter (I do think it’s more effective in this manner than even Vonnegut’s masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five); but I will say that the writing is superb and there are a few key points where the emotional narrative punches you straight in the gut.

I’ll let Trumbo’s work speak for itself. Consider this first section, which happens at the point that Joe Bonham discovers that his arms, legs, mouth, nose and eyes were blown off from a shell on the cusp of No Man’s Land in the war against the Kaiser.

Oh no. No no no.

He couldn’t live like this because he would go crazy. But he couldn’t die because he couldn’t kill himself. If he could only breath he could die. That was funny but it was true. He could hold his breath and kill himself. That was the only way left. Except that he wasn’t breathing. His lungs were pumping air but he couldn’t sto them from doing it. He couldn’t live and he couldn’t die.

No no no that can’t be right.

No no.

Mother.

Mother where are you?

Hurry mother hurry hurry hurry and wake me up. I’m having a nightmare mother where are you? Hurry mother. I’m down here. Here mother. Here in the darkness. Pick me up. Rockabye baby. Now I lay me down to sleep. Oh mother hurry because I can’t wake up. Over here mother. When the wind blows the cradle will rock. Hold me up high high.

Mother you’ve gone away and forgotten me. Here I am. I can’t wake up mother. Wake me up. I can’t move. Hold me. I’m scared. Oh mother mother sing to me and rub me and bathe me and comb my hair and wash out my ears and play with my toes and clap my hands together and blow my nose and kiss my eyes and mouth like I’ve seen you do with Elizabeth like you must have done with me. Then I’ll wake up and I’ll be with you and I’ll never leave or be afraid or dream again.

Oh no.

I can’t. I can’t stand it. Scream. Move. Shake something. Make a noise any noise. I can’t stand it. Oh no no no.

Please I can’t. Please no. Somebody come. Help me. I can’t lie here forever like this until maybe years from now I die. I can’t. Nobody can. It isn’t possible.

I can’t breathe but I’m breathing. I’m so scared I can’t think but I’m thinking. Oh please please no. No no. It isn’t me. Help me. It can’t be me. Not me. No no no.

Oh please oh oh please. No no no please no. Please.

Not me.(64-65)

Out of this desparation grew a terrible rage within Joe, a hopeless rage that targeted the men who started the ridiculous war that came to be called “The War to End all Wars.”

You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. that’s their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.

Hmmmm.

But what do the dead say?

Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god I’m glad I’m dead because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I’m glad I died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it’s good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me I’m dead but I died for decency and that’s better than being alive. Did any of them ever say here I am I’ve been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it’s wonderful to die for your native land. Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I’m happy to see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?

Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can’t talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn’t know what death is. He isn’t able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn’t know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death before dishonor let him go ahead and die. But all the little guys who are too busy to fight should be left alone. And all the guys who say death before dishonor is pure bull the important thing is life before death they should be left alone too. Because the guys who say life isn’t worth living without some principle so important you’re willing to die for it they are all nuts. And the guys who say you’ll see there’ll come a time you can’t escape you’re going to have to fight and die because it’ll mean your very life why they are also nuts. They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a man will have to die in order to protect his life. If you agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your life you aren’t alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing like that? A man doesn’t say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving. He doesn’t say I will spend all my money in order to save my money. He doesn’t say I will burn my house down in order to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of living? There ought to be at least as much common sense about living and dying as there is about going to the grocery store and buying a loaf of bread.

There’s nothing noble about dying. Not even if you die for honor. Not even if you die the greatest hero the world ever saw. Not even if you’re so great your name will never be forgotten and who’s that great? The most important thing is your life little guys. 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 liberty or whatever their word is there’s always a word.

Just say mister I’m sorry I got no time to die I’m too busy and then turn and run like hell. If they say coward why don’t pay any attention because it’s your job to live and not to die. If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you say mister you’re a liar. Nothing is bigger than life. There’s nothing noble in death. What’s noble about lying in the ground and rotting? What’s noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What’s noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What’s noble about being an idiot? What’s noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What’s noble about being dead? Because when you’re dead mister it’s all over. It’s the end. You’re less than a dog less than a rat less than a bee or an ant less than a white maggot crawling around on a dungheap. You’re dead mister and you died for nothing.

You’re dead mister.

Dead.(114-119)

Out of this rage, Joe began his ascent back to becoming a human being. First, he had to recapture time and he does this by timing the nurse’s visits, noting when his bedsheets were changed. Then he felt for the sunshine on his neck (the only exposed skin he had).

Finally, he discovered the only way he had to communicate with the outside world–tapping his head in morse code. He taps for weeks and months before someone understands what he’s doing and when he asks them to be let out of his prison, they tell him it’s against regulations and dope him up so he’ll quit trying to communicate. This was his last chance and they shut him back in his coffin forever.

The resolution of the novel comes with with this grim declaration:

…it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you–you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off…we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.(242-243)

Normally, I’m not given to quoting large chunks of text in my blog posts, but under the circumstances I felt it was warranted since many of you scrubs will never pick this book up. I felt you need to know about it for the same reason that Metallica wrote the song One about it–because it says some pretty simple things about how shitty it is that human beings can’t get along with one another without blowing ourselves up at every stop. About how repugnant it is that we’ve built an economy that runs on the prolonged and deranged death of our own species. And about how pathetic it is that the word freedom has been hung in a sign above our social prison cell like the words “Arbeit Macht Frie” (”Work makes you free”) hung above the gates of Auschwitz as the unbelieving shuffled through with the dim hope of reprieve. Like “INRI” hung above the crown of thorns on the first Good Friday. Joe Bonham said he was a new kind of Christ, an anti-Christ of sorts who leads the path to misery in absolute silence with the strength not of the coward but of the eternally enraged.

It is important to note that this book was written before World War II, so the moral indignation doesn’t exactly carry through when applied to all great wars. But the simpler historical truth is that without the ridiculous first World War, there would have been no second. And without Woodrow Wilson, there would have been no Hitler and, ultimately, no Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.

I can’t say that I agree with the protagonist’s conclusion here but I can understand it from his point of view and that’s all an author can ask of their reader. It’s amazing tha this book still carries the emotional impact that it had back when it was originally published. It’s fascinating that it can still be a lens applied to any situation of war where the people are being asked to sacrifice while the government and the corporation by which it stands makes battle cruisers full of money, hand over fist, and feeds at a seemingly endless banquet table while “the little guys” are getting the full check delivered to their bar stools when all they had was a coffee and a donut (and maybe another beer).

I’ve never served in war, so I’m not qualified to judge the experience. But I can tell you that my life is almost as precious to me as that of my family’s and I would do almost anything to protect them. And inside that statement lies the greatest danger to my life, to all our lives. It’s the internal clitoris that politicians and the devils in men have been stroking for thousands of years in order to reap rewards while others do the dying. Therein lies the catch-22. And that conundrum, the fact that we are told we must sacrifice our lives in order to save them is what is worth writing (and reading) about because despite the fault in logic, we continue to do it willingly by the thousands.

This book is a classic for a reason. Now go read it.

LINKS:
JD’s Review of Johnny Got His Gun

TAGS:
Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo, War, Metallica