 First edition | |
| Author | Dalton Trumbo |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Anti-war novel |
| Published | September 3, 1939 J. B. Lippincott [1] |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 309 [1] |
Johnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist Dalton Trumbo and published in September 1939 by J. B. Lippincott. [1] The novel won one of the early National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1939. [2] A 1971 film adaptation was written and directed by Trumbo.
Joe Bonham, a young American soldier serving in World War I, awakens in a hospital bed after being caught in the blast of an exploding artillery shell. He gradually realizes that he has lost his arms, legs, and all of his face (including his eyes, ears, nose, teeth, and tongue), but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body.
Joe attempts suicide by suffocation, but finds that he has had a tracheotomy that he can neither remove nor control. He then decides that he wants to be placed in a glass coffin and toured around the country in order to demonstrate to others the true horrors of war. Joe eventually successfully communicates this with military officials after several months of banging his head on his pillow in Morse code. However, he realizes that the military will not grant his wish, nor will they put him out of his misery by euthanizing him, as it is "against regulations". It is implied that he will live the rest of his natural life in his condition.
As Joe drifts between reality and fantasy, he remembers his old life with his family and girlfriend, and reflects upon the myths and realities of war.
Joe Bonham is the main character. "The novel mainly consists of his reminiscences of childhood and his current struggle to remain sane and finally to communicate." [3]
"As a caretaker, capable of great humanistic love, the regular day nurse stands apart from the terse medical establishment, represented by the Morse code man, yet is not capable of the perceptive sympathy of the new day nurse." [3]
Joe's father, Bill Bonham, courted Joe's mother and raised a family with her in Colorado. "His character comes to stand for Joe's nostalgia for an older way of life." It is also said that Bill passes away (chapter 1) leaving his mother and his younger sisters alone (one aged 13 years, the other aged about 9 years). [3]
Joe's mother, Marcia Bonham, was close to Joe and Bill. She is referenced regularly in the book singing, cooking/baking and playing the piano.
Kareen (who was aged 19 years at the time of Joe's departure) is mentioned throughout the book as Joe floats between reality and fantasy. She and Joe sleep together for the first time (chapter 3) the night before he leaves, with her father's reluctant approval.
Diane is only mentioned in chapter 4. In that chapter it is mentioned that she cheated on Joe with a boy named Glen Hogan. She also cheats on Joe with his best friend, Bill Harper (who told him that she cheated with Hogan).
Bill Harper warns Joe that Diane has cheated on him with Glen Hogan. Joe, who doesn't believe the news, hits Bill. Joe later finds out Bill was truthful and decides that he wants to renew their friendship. However, he finds Bill and Diane making out at her home and is hurt by both. The end of chapter 4 references how Bill was killed at Belleau Wood.
Joe meets Howie (chapter 9) after his troubles with Diane and Glen Hogan. It seems that Howie was never able to keep a girl in his life, and his girlfriend Onie also cheated on him with Glen Hogan. Joe and Howie decide not only to forget about their girlfriends but also about Glen Hogan. Joe and Howie join a group of Mexicans working on a railroad. However, once Howie receives an apologetic telegram from Onie, the boys decide to return home.
José worked at a bakery with Joe. He was given the job at the bakery through the local homeless shelter. José has many stories that set him apart from the other homeless workers, including the fact that he refused marriage to a wealthy woman. José wanted to work in Hollywood. When the opportunity presented itself to work for a picture company, José purposely gets fired because he feels his own personal honor will not allow him to quit on the boss that gave him his original opportunity.
The new day nurse was the first person to successfully communicate with Joe after his injuries. She moved her finger on his bare chest in the shape of the letter M until Joe signaled that he understood "M". She then spelled out "MERRY CHRISTMAS" and Joe signaled that he understood. The new day nurse then deduced that Joe's head-banging was in Morse Code and fetched someone who knew Morse Code.
The title is a play on the phrase "Johnny get your gun", [4] a rallying call that was commonly used to encourage young American men to enlist in the military in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That phrase was popularized in the George M. Cohan song "Over There", which was widely recorded in the first year of American involvement in World War I. Johnny Get Your Gun is also the name of a 1919 film directed by Donald Crisp. [5]
Many of protagonist Joe Bonham's early memories are based on Dalton Trumbo's early life in Colorado and Los Angeles. The novel is inspired by articles about two men with severe injuries that Trumbo read about: the tearful hospital visit of Edward, Prince of Wales to Curley Christian, considered to be the first and only Canadian soldier in WWI who was a quadruple amputee, and a British major whose body was damaged so horrifically that he was reported as MIA to his family. The family discovered the truth years after his death in the hospital. [6] [7] "Though the novel was a pacifist piece published in wartime, it was well reviewed and won an American Booksellers Award in 1940." [8] (It was published two days after the declaration of war in Europe, more than two years before the United States joined World War II.)
Serialized in the Daily Worker in March 1940, [9] published by the Communist Party USA to which Trumbo belonged, [10] the book became "a rally point for the political left" which had opposed involvement in World War II during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (1939–1941) when the USSR maintained a non aggression pact with Nazi Germany. Shortly after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, Trumbo and his publishers decided to suspend reprinting the book until the end of the war, due to the Communist Party USA's support for the war so long as the US was allied with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. [10]
In his introduction to a 1959 reprinting, Trumbo describes receiving letters from right-wing isolationists requesting copies of the book when it was out of print. Trumbo contacted the FBI and turned these letters over to them. Trumbo regretted this decision, which he later called "foolish," after two FBI agents showed up at his home and it became clear that "their interest lay not in the letters but in me." [11]
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of alleged Communist influences in the motion picture industry.
Roman Holiday is a 1953 American romantic comedy film directed and produced by William Wyler. It stars Audrey Hepburn as a princess out to see Rome on her own and Gregory Peck as a reporter. Hepburn won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance; the story and costume design also won.
Night of the Aurochs is an unfinished novel by Dalton Trumbo, published posthumously in 1979.
Timothy James Bottoms is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for playing the lead in Johnny Got His Gun (1971); Sonny Crawford in The Last Picture Show (1971), where he and his fellow co-stars, Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges, rose to fame; and as James Hart, the first-year law student who battles with Prof. Kingsfield, in the film adaptation The Paper Chase (1973). He is also known for playing the main antagonist in the disaster film Rollercoaster (1977) and for playing President George W. Bush multiple times, including on the sitcom That's My Bush!, the comedy film The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course and the docudrama DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.
"One" is a song by American heavy metal band Metallica, released as the third and final single from the band's fourth studio album, ...And Justice for All (1988). Written by band members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the song portrays a World War I soldier who is severely wounded—arms, legs and jaw blown off by a landmine, blind and unable to speak or move—begging God to take his life. In the music video, attempting to communicate with the hospital staff he jolts in his bed, spelling "Kill me" in Morse code. Production of the song was done by the band alongside Flemming Rasmussen. The song was the band's first to chart in the U.S., reaching number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a number one hit in Finland.
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Joe, William, Jack and Averell Dalton, known together as The Daltons or the Dalton brothers, are fictional characters in the Lucky Luke Western comics series. Four brothers and outlaws acting as the most recurring enemies to protagonist Lucky Luke, they were created by artist Morris and writer René Goscinny. Loosely inspired by the real-life Dalton Gang active in the United States in early 1890s, The Daltons first had a one-panel cameo appearance in the 1958 comic Lucky Luke versus Joss Jamon, before being prominently featured later that year in the comic The Dalton Cousins.
The Outsiders is a 1983 American coming-of-age crime drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is an adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton and was released on March 25, 1983, in the United States. Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian at Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, and her students were responsible for inspiring Coppola to make the film.
Arch Oboler was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, producer, and director who was active in radio, films, theater, and television. He generated much attention with his radio scripts, particularly the horror series Lights Out, and his work in radio remains the outstanding period of his career. Praised as one of broadcasting's top talents, he is regarded today as a key innovator of radio drama. Oboler's personality and ego were larger than life. Radio historian John Dunning wrote, "Few people were ambivalent when it came to Arch Oboler. He was one of those intense personalities who are liked and disliked with equal fire."
The Last Sunset is a 1961 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, and Dorothy Malone.
Johnny Got His Gun is a 1971 American independent epic anti-war film written and directed by Dalton Trumbo, in his directorial debut, based on his 1938 novel of the same name. The film stars Timothy Bottoms, Kathy Fields, Marsha Hunt, Jason Robards, Donald Sutherland and Diane Varsi. It was Trumbo's first and only directorial effort.
A Man to Remember is a 1938 American drama film directed by Garson Kanin, his first film credit as a director. The picture was based on the short story Failure, written by Katharine Haviland-Taylor, and the screenplay was penned by Dalton Trumbo. The story tells of a saintly small-town doctor working under difficult circumstances somewhere in the United States after World War I. The movie is a remake of One Man's Journey (1933) starring Lionel Barrymore.
Inferno is a 1999 American action film directed by John G. Avildsen, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Danny Trejo, Pat Morita, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, and David "Shark" Fralick. This was the last film directed by Avildsen before his death in 2017.
Ed Naha is an American science fiction and mystery writer and producer. His first known publication was artwork that appeared in the first issue of Modern Monsters magazine, dated June 1966.
Terror in a Texas Town is a 1958 American Western film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and starring Sterling Hayden, Nedrick Young, and Sebastian Cabot.
Jack Holden is an English actor, writer and producer from Tonbridge in Kent. He is best known for his roles in the television series Marriage with Sean Bean and Nicola Walker and in Ten Percent. Holden began his acting career starring in West End play War Horse.
The Joe Bonham Project is named after the fictional protagonist of Dalton Trumbo's 1939 anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun. Its purpose is to portray the reality of war to the public with art that portrays the human consequences of combat. Founded by war artist Michael D. Fay, the organisation holds exhibitions to introduce the public to artistic representations of war and the aftermath of war.
Trumbo is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Jay Roach and written by John McNamara. The film stars Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson, Dean O'Gorman as Kirk Douglas, and David James Elliott as John Wayne. The film follows the life of Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, and is based on the 1977 biography Dalton Trumbo by Bruce Alexander Cook.
Dead 7 is a 2016 post-apocalyptic zombie horror western film written by Nick Carter, directed by Danny Roew and produced by The Asylum. It aired on SyFy on April 1, 2016 in the United States.
Antonia Hirsch is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Berlin.
