...The passage from Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo shows a complicated but loving relationship between a father and his son. In the passage, the tradition of Joe and his father fishing together is broken. The father, however, reacts calmly. For eight years, they had gone camping together, preferring each other’s company over anyone else’s. And that year, Bill Harper and Joe were going fishing together. This coming of age tale shows a young man separating from his father and becoming independent, and an abandoned father showing acceptance instead of anger. Through syntax, point of view, and selection of detail, and symbolism, Trumbo creates a complicated and vivid relationship between a father and son. The use of diction and syntax in the...
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...December. In Dalton Trumbo’s novel, Johnny Got His Gun, the author tells a story of a young man and his father’s tradition of going fishing. Through the third person point of view and lack of dialogue, the story shows the detached relationship the father and son have. The third person point of view of the passage interprets the true feelings of the son and the father’s relationship upon the breaking of the tradition. The third person point of view makes it clear to show that the father is actually upset that the son had broken a tradition of nine years, while the son didn’t think twice about it. The passage begins with the mixed feelings of the son. The son sat in front of the fire and looked across at his father and wondered how he was going to tell him that he wanted to fish with Bill Harper this camping trip, rather than going with his father,...
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...change, treading on its heels. In his novel Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo illustrates a young man shouldering the guilt of telling his father that he would prefer to fish with a friend rather than with his father. Although the young man and his father clearly maintain a close relationship, as shown through the author’s continuous use of “they” in the initial paragraph and the son’s struggle with guilt in the last few paragraphs, the son is beginning to move on with his life and thus distance himself from his father, as shown through the limited perspective of the son in the later half of the excerpt and the carefully selected details surrounding the interactions between father and son. With the author’s continuous...
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...sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he began to sense a revulsion for everything around him. Maybe he was really happy on the island —more than he realised. Once more he thought about a job; if he didn’t find one soon he might starve. But 30 as the reality of this dawned on him he began laughing. No! No one starved in Canada; that only happened in such places as India or Africa. But definitely not Canada! A growling in his...
Words: 37585 - Pages: 151
...sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he began to sense a revulsion for everything around him. Maybe he was really happy on the island —more than he realised. Once more he thought about a job; if he didn’t find one soon he might starve. But 30 as the reality of this dawned on him he began laughing. No! No one starved in Canada; that only happened in such places as India or Africa. But definitely not Canada! A growling in his...
Words: 37585 - Pages: 151
