May 1

I didn’t feel that the essay and Johnny Got his Gun were very similar; in fact I felt that they were quite opposite. The article talked mostly of the relations between the Muslims and the Americans and their differences in beliefs. The book talks of the aftermath of war in terms of Joe. At the end of the essay it says Americans are known to be “confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future oriented” (page 779). This is the exact opposite of how Joe is portrayed as a character. He is experiencing the ill effects of war and he does not fit into any of the typical American characteristics. He is not self-reliant since he doesn’t have any limbs and he is not future oriented since he wants to die. These ideas did not match the essay at all. There were so many differences that I could not really find any similarities between the two although I liked both because they were so different.