Johnny Got His Gun Analysis

In the excerpt from Dalton Trumbo’s novel Johnny Got His Gun, the author tells the coming of age story of the main protagonist Joe. The passage deals with Joe’s struggle with confessing to his father about wanting to break their long time tradition and his worry about how that will affect their relationship. Dalton uses Joe’s inner conflict as a way to elaborate and reveal the relationship between Joe and his father to the reader. By using a limited point of view, repeated parallel sentence structure, and several intimate details and symbols, Trumbo demonstrates the steadfast and warm father son bond shared by the two. Trumbo chose to write the story in a third person limited point of view, disclosing only the thoughts and emotions of Joe. Joe’s apprehensions highlight his fear about how his decision might change his relationship with his father. Before informing his father of Bill Harper’s presence the next day on their normally private trip, Joe ponders the significance and possible ramifications of this break from the norm, “It was an ending and a beginning and he wondered just how he should tell his father about it” (line 26-28). In this quote, the author reveals that Joe understands the symbolic implications of inviting
On multiple occasions, Trumbo presents the reader with a sentence with two elements connected by an and. Trumbo does this in order to force the reader to contrast and judge each element. One of the more impactful instances of this follows Joe’s reveal that his father’s and his trip started when he was at the tender age of seven. As if declaring to the reader he is now a young man, Joe says, “Now he was fifteen and Bill Harper was going to come tomorrow” (line13-14). Trumbo places the reader in the role of Joe, asking them if they would make the same choice as