Joe wants out

Joe wants to be let out; to have the air from the out side hit him for the first time in five plus years. Joe has an idea on how he will be able to support him self with out help from the government. If Joe were to join a freak show he could get money to support him self, he would also let people see what war does to you. Joe’s want is against regulation because they do not want him to go out. They do not want people to see what has happened to Joe. For Joe the reason they did not want to let him out is because the army did not want people to see want happens to people in war because then no one would go to war. To Joe the army just wants him to go back to being disconnected because the army does not want him to live.

Joes dream with Christ

Joe has a dream that he is at a train station in a room with Christ. Joe is with a group of men playing black jack. They are finishing up there game to go get on the train and they are talking about how they will die. One of the people with Joe points out that Joe does not die. Joe explains that he will have to live his whole life with out arms, legs, a face, sight, or sound. All the men think that what Joe has to go through is worse then having to die. The men get on the train and it starts to go. When they get to the desert Joe sees Christ out floating in the air. Joe thinks that he does not belong on the train because he is not living nor dead so he jumps off the train and run to Christ and bows at his feet.

the tapping

Joe starts to tap to try to communicate to the outside world. He is using morose code to communicate. The idea of being able to talk with the out side world gives Joe hope that he has not had since before he was hurt. The ability to talk with the out side world makes Joe human again and brings him one step closer to the living. The taping also is a chance for him to get out of his head and find thing out that he has only be able to wonder about. There is also some anger that he gets from the taping because the nurse does not seem to get the reason he is tapping in the first place. Joe is so happy that he has a way to communicate he get angry that the people on the out side do not seem to get what he is doing.

finding time

For Joe time is a way to keep connected to the world. With time Joe is able to know how much time has passed. It is also a way for Joe to mark thing like new years and the days of the week, which helps Joe from going crazy. To master time Joe has to set up a base time to go off of. First he tries to count the time between the visits by the nurse, but he can’t do it. It is not till he thinks of how the nurse does there work, with the hard work in the morning, does Joe find a way to get a grip on time. Joe also finds that if he can feel the change in temperature of the sunrise and compare it to the times that the nurse comes he will have a base for time.

willing to die for

To Joe nothing is worth fighting for because if he dies it is no good to him. Joe thinks that you should not have to die for freedom because once you die you have no freedom. Joe also does not think that dieing for democracy because his life is more important to him then democracy. Joe thinks that if you die then it was not worth fighting for because he is so close to death and he was fighting for freedom and now he has no freedom. Life to Joe now means such a different thing now that he almost does not have one. When something so important is taken away from you see how much you needed it and for Joe it was a normal life and now all he wants is to have that back or to just die. It takes a lot to want be willing to die for something but for Joe, who had no choice on if he was willing to die because some one else already said Joe was willing to die.

the rat

The rat comes to visit Joe to eat the side of him where he has a wound that will not heal. The rat comes from a memory of seeing a Prussian officer getting his face eaten by a rat. When Joe start to get pain in his side he think it is a rat. The rat represents the pain and the idea that he can do nothing but feel the pain. The rat also represents the want to die; Joe can do nothing but let a rat eat away at him. This makes it so all Joe wants is to be put out of this pain. Joe is the one in a million that will have to live with is for the rest of his life an he will always have this rat eating away at him because the rat is the pain of going through the day where you are dieing inside but not outside.

no limes

Joe has had all of his limes amputated. He compares is to drowning because he can no longer keep himself afloat with out his limes. He is drowning because he cannot have a normal life now. There is also this feeling of giving up hope to be normal again. Joe has found a place in life with no good way to come out of it to live a normal life. With out his arms and legs Joe will not be able to live a life. It is a hard realization to come to and that is what is started in the beginning of the book.

Esthers first time

Esther feels a need to sleep with Irwin because it would be this sexual awakening that she has wanted. She is no longer wanting to have sex to get back at Buddy but that has played a role in making her go this far. One other reason that Esther wants to have sex with Irwin is that it is her way of going agents what is proper for women to do at the time. After Ester has sex with Irwin she does not feel this awakening that she thought she would feel after having sex. Instead of feeling go as she thought she is not alright. She ends up having to go to the hospital after she levees Irwin’s because she is in such bad shape after her experience.