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Arms
The rat that eats Joe alive (in what may or may not be a nightmare) represents the uncertain nature of reality. It also represents the horrors of war, particularly the mental toll it takes on soldiers like Joe. Joe repeatedly compares his situation in the hospital to being like a dead person, and the fact that rats commonly eat corpses gives credence to Joe’s comparison. Another rat in the story eats the face of a German army officer, confirming the link between rats and death. Without arms, Joe is powerless to do anything as the rat literally eats him alive, representing how the war took away Joe’s agency. Joe thinks that he wakes up at one point and that the rat was just a nightmare, but because he lives in a condition where hallucinations, memories, and the present all blend together, he can’t be sure the rat isn’t real. Furthermore, even if the rat isn’t real, Joe could still have the same nightmare again, and it would be just as terrifying. In this way, the rat also demonstrates how the mental and emotional effects of war can be just as devasting as the physical ones.
The Rat Quotes in Johnny Got His Gun
The Johnny Got His Gun quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Rat. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7
Quotes
He thought about it afterward. It didn’t matter whether the rat was gnawing on your buddy or a damned German it was all the same. Your real enemy was the rat and when you saw it there fat and well fed chewing on something that might be you why you went nuts.
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Chapter 8
Quotes
He saw he had to do it. Because if he couldn’t tell being awake from being asleep why he couldn’t even consider himself a grown-up person.
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The Rat Symbol Timeline in Johnny Got His Gun
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Rat appears in Johnny Got His Gun. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7
...as the place he’s in gets dimmer. He feels the claws and whiskers of a rat climbing on him near his wound, but he can’t do anything about it. He remembers...
(full context)
Joe feels the rat eating his flesh near the edges of his wound. He wonders where the nurse is....
(full context)
Chapter 8
...washing him and is glad to not be alone. He feels relieved that seemingly the rat was only a dream, although he fears that even if it’s just a dream, it...
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...as soon as he feels sleepy, he’s going to force himself not to think about rats. But then he realizes that he’s not even sure what sleepiness will feel like in...
(full context)
