The rat that eats Joe alive (in what may or may not be a nightmare) represents the uncertain nature of reality. It also represents the horrors of war, particularly the mental toll it takes on soldiers like Joe. Joe repeatedly compares his situation in the hospital to being like a dead person, and the fact that rats commonly eat corpses gives credence to Joe’s comparison. Another rat in the story eats the face of a German army officer, confirming the link between rats and death. Without arms, Joe is powerless to do anything as the rat literally eats him alive, representing how the war took away Joe’s agency. Joe thinks that he wakes up at one point and that the rat was just a nightmare, but because he lives in a condition where hallucinations, memories, and the present all blend together, he can’t be sure the rat isn’t real. Furthermore, even if the rat isn’t real, Joe could still have the same nightmare again, and it would be just as terrifying. In this way, the rat also demonstrates how the mental and emotional effects of war can be just as devasting as the physical ones.
The Rat Quotes in Johnny Got His Gun
He thought about it afterward. It didn’t matter whether the rat was gnawing on your buddy or a damned German it was all the same. Your real enemy was the rat and when you saw it there fat and well fed chewing on something that might be you why you went nuts.
He saw he had to do it. Because if he couldn’t tell being awake from being asleep why he couldn’t even consider himself a grown-up person.
The Rat Symbol Timeline in Johnny Got His Gun
