Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Johnny Got His Gun, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Horrors of War
The Value of Life
Elites vs. Common People
Time and Memory
Summary
Analysis
Lying on his back, Joe feels like he’s on a camping trip all by himself. He wonders why he went to war in the first place and what, if anything, he really accomplished. Supposedly, he fought for liberty, but if he really thinks about it, he doesn’t even know the meaning of liberty. He figures maybe no one who uses the word liberty really knows how to define it. Joe concludes that anyone who fights for liberty in the trenches is a “goddam fool,” and anyone who sends these people into the trenches for liberty is a “liar.”
This chapter represents the culmination of everything Joe has learned over the course of the first half of the book. The concepts that Joe considers, like “liberty,” deliberately mimic the grand, idealizing language the language that politicians, generals, and other authority figures use to justify war. Whereas other parts of the book indirectly get at the horrors of war, in this passage, Joe’s thoughts use direct language, as he plainly calls the people who start wars “liars.”
Themes
Joe thinks about how people have always been fighting for liberty. He figures a lot of Americans died fighting for liberty in 1776, yet today Americans don’t have any more liberty than Australians or Canadians. Other concepts, like democracy, freedom, decency, and honor are just as meaningless, particularly since the meaning can change based on who gives the definition.
Like the United States, Australia and Canada both used to be part of the British Empire, but the difference is that they didn’t fight for independence. Joe shows his willingness to challenge convention by questioning the value of the Revolutionary War, since it seems like Australia and Canada achieved similar results without a war.
Themes
Joe thinks about how lots of wars revolve around land, especially native land, and he wonders what good land does for you after you’re dead. He notes that when the people starting wars really struggle to recruit soldiers, they often use women as a prop, suggesting that the enemy wants to rape all of the native land’s beautiful women. He supposes that it might be noble to fight to protect a real woman, but wars ask you to fight for “women in the bulk,” making them so abstract that they’re just another word like liberty.
Joe’s arguments are based on dismantling common justifications for war, not just during World War I but throughout history. Although his arguments use humor and sarcasm, Joe is serious about wanting to challenge the status quo and to question commonly held opinions about war and honor. While “protecting women” might seem like a universally worthwhile goal, Joe breaks down these claims, showing how the reality of war doesn’t seem to line up with many of its supposed justifications.
Themes
Joe feels that people who die in a war don’t gain anything themselves, and it’s possible that no one else gains anything either. He’s heard idealists who think there are principles more precious than life, but Joe thinks that if it’s “barbarous” to value life more than principles, he’d rather be barbarous. He notes that lots of people in churches, schools, newspapers, and Congress like to talk about sacrificing lives, but the dead themselves never get to come back and say whether their sacrifice was worth it.
Joe questions the idea that any principle or ideal, no matter how significant, is really more important than life. Joe isn’t necessarily advocating for nihilism or totally abandoning principles—arguably, he is putting forward his own set of ideals, where preserving valuing life is the most important ideal. Joe knows he is fighting an uphill battle, and his references to churches, schools, and Congress illustrate all the different institutions that uphold conventional ways of thinking.
Themes
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Joe thinks that many people justify war as self-defense. But he thinks that risking your life in combat to try to save yourself is as paradoxical as trying to save money by spending it. He doesn’t feel like he should have to be willing to die just to earn the privilege of living. He thinks that all the millions of people who have died in the war so far likely didn’t die with democracy on their minds—in reality, they were probably crying out in fear and longing for comfort.
Having come as close to death as possible, Joe isn’t ready to casually dismiss life. Joe believes that humans have a fundamental right to live and that this contradicts the idea that a person must fight for self-defense. Joe believes that everyone deserves a chance to live—but that war (along with the ideals used to justify it) can distort the way that people view the issue.
Themes
As the living person in the world closest to being dead, Joe feels sure about his conclusions. He wants to tell all the bloodthirsty hypocrites in positions of power that, as a dead person, he knows nothing is really worth dying for. He’d rather work underground in a coal mine 20 hours a day than die. He’d give up freedom and democracy just to be alive again. He concludes that there’s nothing noble about death, and if you die in war, you die for nothing.
Despite the cynical and at times grim nature of Joe’s thoughts in this chapter, they also have an element of triumph, as Joe decides he wants to make the most of his remaining life. Joe’s comparison of himself to someone who works in a mine for 20 hours a day suggests the universal nature of Joe’s struggle and how the conflict between leaders and common people plays out not just in war but in other mundane areas of life, too.
Themes
