Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 9, 2023 February 2, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
The title of Johnny Got His Gun alludes to a wartime patriotic song that included the line "Johnny get your gun" in the refrain. The title's use of the past tense emphasizes the inappropriate optimism and blind patriotism of the original song: Joe Bonham did get his gun, and the results are that he has lost everything but his life and gained nothing in return. Several other patriotic songs thread through the narrative of the novel by way of Joe's memory. At the beginning of Book II, Joe remembers snatches of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade," written to laud a small brigade of English soldiers who rode into a battle in which they were greatly outnumbered and brutally defeated. Joe's narrative uses the scraps of these songs ironically, revealing their ultimate absurdity and inability to comfort recognized suffering and pain.
Book I of Johnny Got His Gun consists mainly of Joe's flashback memories. The only pattern of these memories appears to be that many of them recount a moment of loss for Joe. They involve scenes when people from Joe's life left never to return, or when Joe's relationship with someone permanently altered. This pattern fits in with the novel's upending of the classic coming-of-age narrative. Joe, rather than coming into his character through learning or epiphany, reaches formative points that center around instances of loss, building up to a final state in which Joe has lost parts of his self.
Book I of Johnny Got His Gun is entitled "The Dead"; Book II is entitled "The Living." This trajectory from death to life points to one of the novel's particular fascinations: rebirth from death. The trajectory, however, is not treated as optimistically as we might expect, as we see in the figure of "Lazarus" from Joe's war memory, who is "raised" from the dead twice by an exploding shell only to be "killed" several more times by the British regiment. Joe envisions himself as a Lazarus at the end of the novel, when he finally is able to communicate with the outside world, yet he is shoved back in his "coffin" when the doctor denies his request to communicate and sedates him once more. In this sense, rebirth from death is part of a larger circle in which one is doomed to relive the pains of one's former life.
Please wait while we process your payment