Drone Out the Prayers I Can't Hear

When Joe is finally able to break his silence with Morse code, he expresses a desire to be shown to others. He wants others to see the results and horrors of war. “He would be an educational exhibit. People wouldn’t learn much about anatomy from him but they would learn all there was to know about war… Take off my nightshirt and build a glass case for me and take me down to the places where people are having fun where they are on the lookout for freakish things… I am the dead-man-who-is-alive (287-289).” He wants to display the sacrifices he’s made for democracy. He wants governmental workers to view him in all his stunning atrocity and vote against war. He wants his terrible existence to mean something. When I read this part, my heart hurt. The pity and anger and sadness I felt was overwhelming. If I were in Joe’s situation, I would want to be killed. Life would simply not be worth living. A life of darkness, silence, and loneliness is no life. I understand his desire to form change from tragedy, but it’s not what I would want.