Johnny Got His Gun Character Analysis

Joe

Joe Bonham is a young man originally from Shale City, Colorado. He gets drafted to fight in Europe during World War I and ends up gravely injured in an artillery shell explosion and hospitalized. The… read analysis of Joe

Father

Joe’s father dies before Joe goes to war. Nevertheless, he remains perhaps the most important figure in Joe’s memories and hallucinations as Joe remembers his past while lying in the hospital. The book begins with… read analysis of Father

Mother

Joe’s mother, while not quite as central to Joe’s story as his father, is nevertheless an important figure in Joe’s life, and she seems to represent comfort for Joe. In Joe’s memories and… read analysis of Mother

Kareen

Kareen is Joe’s girlfriend before he goes to fight in World War I. One of Joe’s formative memories is spending the whole night in Kareen’s arms before he ships off the next day. Long… read analysis of Kareen

Bill Harper

Bill Harper is one of Joe’s closest friends in Shale City, Colorado, although their relationship sometimes gets contentious. Bill Harper is there on the fateful camping trip where Joe loses Joe’s father’s treasured… read analysis of Bill Harper

Jose

Jose is a mysterious Puerto Rican man who works at the same bakery as Joe in Los Angeles. Jose uses the services of a local charity called Midnight Mission, suggesting that he’s poor. However, he… read analysis of Jose

Howie

Howie is Joe’s friend who goes to work with him on a railroad in the desert. Most of the other workers on the crew are Mexican, and for both Joe and Howie, the event… read analysis of Howie

The New Day Nurse

Toward the end of the story, Joe gets a new day nurse, apparently a substitute the hospital brought in to cover for the old nurse over the holidays. Joe tries to communicate with her using… read analysis of The New Day Nurse

The Doctor

After the new day nurse realizes that Joe is trying to communicate using Morse code, she sends for a doctor who knows Morse code. Joe is elated when the doctor comes to speak with him… read analysis of The Doctor

Lazarus

Lazarus is the nickname for an unknown German soldier whom Joe’s regiment kills. Despite the regiment’s efforts to bury him, Lazarus literally rises from the grave (like the biblical Lazarus rises from the dead)… read analysis of Lazarus

Lincoln Beechy

Lincoln Beechy was a real person (although his last name was spelled “Beachy”) and one of the first aviators. His fictionalized version shows up in Shale City when Joe is still young, giving Joe a… read analysis of Lincoln Beechy

Diane

Diane is a girl from Shale City, Colorado, who goes on a few dates with Joe before secretly going on a date with Glen Hogan. She is part of the reason that Joe and… read analysis of Diane

Minor Characters

The Old Day Nurse

Joe eventually tries to communicate with hospital staff by banging his head against the bed to tap out messages in Morse code, and he’s frustrated when the nurses who care for him, including the old day nurse, don’t understand what he’s trying to do.

Old Mike Birkman

Old Mike Birkman is Kareen’s father. Despite being a famously cranky man, he allows Joe and Kareen to spend the night together before Joe leaves for war, perhaps because Old Mike recognizes the possibility that Joe might not come back.

Jody Simmons

Jody Simmons is Joe’s foreman at the bakery where Joe works in Los Angeles after leaving Shale City but before going to war.

Laurette

Laurette is a sex worker at Stumpy Telsa’s brothel who befriends Joe, even sending him a graduation present, although they never have sex. She leaves on a vacation for a few months, and Joe never sees her again.

Stumpy Telsa

Stumpy Telsa runs a brothel in Shale City that becomes a place of fascination for Joe and Bill Harper, long before they even know the house’s true purpose.

Onie

Onie is a girl from Shale City who goes on a couple dates with Howie before leaving him for Glen Hogan. The situation is very similar to Joe’s situation with Diane, and it’s what motivates Joe and Howie to go work on the railroad.

Bonnie

Bonnie is a young woman from Shale City who is slightly younger than Joe but who had a crush on him in school. They have sex when they meet again in Los Angeles.

Lucky

Lucky is a Black American sex worker who Joe meets in Paris. She reminds Joe of home in a city where he is otherwise surrounded by foreign people and languages he can’t understand.

Johnny Got His Gun Characters

Joe