My last blog for Lamags

In the last chapter of Johnny Got His Gun, Joe gets a new day nurse who can understand his constant tapping in morse code. He taps out a SOS message to the nurse who then leaves the room to go find a man who then walks into the room and taps on Joe's head. The man taps out, "What do you want?" Joe doesn't know what he wants because all this time he has simply just wanted to talk to somebody. All these thoughts rush to his head. What Joe really wants is his normal life back and all of his limbs. Thats what he wants but he knows it is impossible so then he thinks that he wants to go outside but he then figures it is out of hospital regulations because it is too expensive. He then starts thinking the idea of using himself as some sort of exhibit for people to see the true horror of war and what it can do to you. Joe figures that this probably wont work either because if people knew the ruth about war and what could possibly happen, no one would become part of the army. After telling the  man that he wants to be used as an exhibit, he leaves the room and then reenters telling Joe that it is against regulations. Joe becomes silent and says nothing else. Joe comes to the realization that the army only wants to forget about Joe so that this tragedy will never make it to the earth's surface because if it did it would decrease the favoritism towards the government and show people the truth about fighting. 

The dream

While sedated, Joe has a dream of the woman who is searching for her son from the beginning of the book. Her son was only 16 and was given the choice to go to prison or go to war. He begins to see the son walking through the desert of Tucson and he envisions the young man as Christ. In his dream Christ comes to the train station and plays cards with Joe and other men who are going off to war and are going to die. Christ provides a glass of scotch for each of the men. Each of them start telling off their stories about how they are going to experience a horrible death when one man points out that Joe will not die in battle. Once Joe points out what his destiny is all of the men feel terrible for him and would much rather die than end up like him. The men let him be and Christ gets up because he has plenty more men to see before they die. As the train leaves, Joe feels lonely on a train with a bunch of men going to their deaths so he jumps off and runs across the desert. he throws himself at what seems to be Christ. I thought the dream was a little ironic especially since in the next chapter Joe figures out that it is Christmas because his new nurse writes with her fingernail on his chest. I think the dream was not only odd but metaphorical. Because Joe is the dead man who has been brought back to life. He isn't completely dead but he isn't fully alive much like Christ in a way. Christ sacrificed himself and then came back to life after his scarification much like Joe. Joe sacrificed his life for his country and he came back alive but barely. He is relating himself a little to Christ because of that and he is really the only one who knows his pain and knows what it's like to be dead and come back and have people forget about him . 

Tapping

In the most recent activities of Joe the Stump, Joe has began tapping. In chapter 13 joe is being prepared for visitors. He quickly gets excited at the thought that it could be Kareen and his family but he soon becomes discouraged and hopes that Kareen will never have to see him the way he is. When the visitors finally come they observe the body and stick something on Joe's chest. Joe realizes that he is being payed a visit by generals who are decorating him with medals. He soon becomes infuriated by the thought and makes a strange sound in his thought. the vibration he hears soon makes him think of communication. The idea then comes to him that he can communicate through vibrations and use morse code. In his new idea Joe starts banging his head against the headboard to send out messages to the nurses' around him. The day nurse doesn't quite understand what he is trying to do so she changes him, cleans his bed, and baths him. Once he continues to tap she thinks that it is out of pure sexual frustration so she then begins to masturbate him. Joe is a little creeped out by it but then begins to like it a little more. Joe's initial reason for tapping was to be able to communicate with the people around him and send out messages but none of the nurses' understand what he is doing. In his desperate call for help Joe looses complete track of time and becomes a little more frustrated with the situation. 

Mastering Time

In chapter 11 Joe decides he wants to be able to tell time. That presents itself to be difficult seeing how he can't see or hear. At the beginning of the chapter Joe tries very hard to keep him self busy and entertained. He starts thinking of old books and songs that he had read and heard and tries his best to remember all the lines. He then comes up with the idea of how he could possibly tell time. Loosing eye sight and sense of hearing are things he has to work around in order to reach his goal. The first thing he tries to do is calculate the time from when he was hit on september 18th and until the day he woke up. He soon comes to realize this is impossible and chooses a different method. His initial thought process was to count the seconds, minutes, and hours between each nurses' visit until he reached 24 hours but he can't focus that long so that method goes out the window. He then decides to distinguish the amount of bowl movements that occur and how often his sheets are changed between each nurse's visits. That doesn't exactly work so then he comes to the conclusion that the nurse probably baths him in the morning and estimates that it is around 2 hours between each visit. This one works and he can feel the change in temperature on his neck when he is being bathed. His methods are quite confusing to me but they work for him. I think he decides to master time so he can feel more alive and know what is going on. He wants to feel more of a part of the world and with being able to tell time he can't think of himself as similar to others out there in the world. He also wants to do it to be entertained so he isn't constantly bored. i

What is worth fighting for

In chapter 9 through 10 Joe is still stuck laying in his bed. In chapter 9 Joe remembers a camping trip with his father in which he brought a friend along with him. On the camping trip it is tradition for Joe to go fishing with his dad but he feels as if he is of age where he can go fishing with his friend and his dad agrees. The dad gives Joe's friend, Billy, his fishing rod which used to be his dad's. The boys loose Joe's dad's fishing rod and the whole walk back to camp Joe tries to think of what he is going to say. He tells his dad that he lost his rod and that he was really sorry. His dad simply tells him that it is okay and hugs him. Joe realizes it is his last trip with his dad and that next year he will be going to the mountains with all the other boys his age and his dad will be with all the other men. He snaps out of it and wakes up feeling very alone. In chapter 10 Joe thinks of why he actually went to war. He says that the army tricked him into going to war because he was fighting for freedom and liberty. he says that all the men who went to war didn't exactly know what they were fighting for while they were there and they ended up dyeing for democracy. In the end Joe realizes that the only thing worth fighting for is life and that is exactly what he is doing right now while he lies in is bed. Joe believes that fighting for democracy and liberty isn't worth the initial cost of death and harm. Joe is more than upset he got tricked into fighting because he didn't know why he as fighting but in the end life is only thing worth fighting for. 

The Stump and the rat

In these chapters we see how completely helpless Joe is. He has no arms, no legs, he can't see, his tongue is gone and he practically has no face. He is as useless as a stump of a tree. Although that is not very nice and is very unfortunate it is kind of the truth and I have a great amount of sympathy for him. One night a rat decides to pay Joe a little visit. The rat begins to crawl all over Joe and started gnawing at his skin and open sores. The rat simply reminds Joe of how helpless he is because the rat is all over Joe and he can't do one thing to get the rat off of him. The rat represented the healthy enemy and the sick allies and friends dieing and passing away all around Joe. He also realizes that the rat only visits him while he is asleep but when he wakes up he sees the nurse. He can't exactly tell what is reality and when he is awake because he never really knows if the rat is there since he can't see. The rat is symbolic for all the problems Joe is having in his life and how much his life has gone down the drain. 

The Stump and the bakery

In the three chapter that we read last night we find out that Joe the half stump is actually a whole stump. Joe figures out that he has no legs either and that they have both been amputated causing Joe to think that he is dying. In chapter 6 Joe starts to think about working the night shift at the bakery. He starts to remember  man named Jose who showed up for work one night. Jose was from Puerto Rico and his previous job was a chauffeur for a rich family in New York. After the daughter of the family feel in love with him he had to leave. The man tells all the guys at work about his previous situation but they don't believe him. Jose then receives a letter from the girl asking for his address so she can find him and come marry him with all the money she has just inherited from her family. Jose then receives a second job and he doesn't know how to juggle the two. he does his best but realizes he only can get 45 minutes of sleep. the boys at work then start to think of ways Jose can get him self fired. So he tries dropping a pie in-front of his boss Jody. But Jody simply forgives him and does nothing. Then the next night he tips over a entire cart of pies and gets fired. Jose then walks out the door and is never seen again. Joe admires him because Jose realized that Jody had done so much for him and he couldn't walk up to Jody and tell him he wanted to quite. Joe did what was best for him and nobody else. Joe remembers the bakery because it as the job that he had while his dad died. So I think Joe remembers it because that is a life changing experience.