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Johnny Got His Gun Analysis

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For centuries, people from all around the world have been subjected to jarring and authoritarian treatment. Holocausts in central and eastern Europe and Africa; Jewish people and African natives endured torturous genocides for the expense of German imperialism. Women in the United States were place in a domestic sphere with unequal rights and injustice before the Women’s Rights Movement. These are one of many historic events that display the inequality and oppression of human rights throughout the world. In the novels Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo and Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee, the theme oppression reoccurs in various points of the book to support the messages of anti-war and anti-imperialism. Joe Bonham, the main character …show more content…
With money and powerful connections, elitist have the ability to buy their way out of war, leaving the dirty work for those “below” them. In the novel Johnny Got His Gun, Joe Bonham makes judgement that war and its purpose have no reason to be involving middle class citizens. As Joe lies on his hospital bed, he reflects “This was no war for you. This thing wasn’t any of your business. What do you care about making the world safe for democracy? All you wanted to do Joe was to live...yet here you are and it was none of your affair...It wasn’t your fight Joe. You never really knew that the fight was all about” (Trumbo 24). Joe and those alike do not have the choice of enlisting.The oppression of the middle class by the upper class demonstrate whose fight it really is. The interests of war were prescribed by the elites; who do not fight. Joe continues to asks “Somebody said let’s go out and fight for liberty...so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking about liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose idea of liberty?” (Trumbo 110). The use of propaganda were used to coerce the working class to fight the war. Phrases of “democracy” and “liberty” drew people in, not knowing what it meant. Oppressing the purpose of war from citizens brought false realities of what …show more content…
As Joe lays in the hospital bed waiting for someone to understand, he ponders the purpose of this war and whether people know the reality of it. When a doctor is able to communicate, he declines Joe’s request of going outside. Outraged, Joe continues to furiously tap “why”’ until he slowly sedated and silenced. “Please he wanted out...please understand. He wanted the feel of people of his own kind free and happy...The man who had tapped his answer was applying an alcoholic swab. Oh god he thought I know what that means don’t do it please...Oh god he thought they won’t let me talk. They won’t even listen to me anymore” (Trumbo 237-238). Joe’s request to go outside was to display himself in front of people, to inform them the realities of war. What newspapers and press don’t show are due to fear of people enlisting knowing the truth. Doctors silencing Joe not only silence him but also the public. Their ability to keep any images or information of what war is, prevents riots and protests. Irum Abbasi’s “Media Censorship: Freedom versus Responsibility” explain the global phenomenon of media censorship. Access to media is not always easy; certain media (television, internet, print, etc.) are sometimes in the control of the government. The authors explains “Information coup through censorship is the first line of action against an imminent threat to a

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