John Brown

John Brown is the titular hero of the poem “John Brown”. It

is an anti war lyric written by Bob Dylan which brings into
limelight his deep rooted pacifism. It highlights the toll that
war takes on young men who are blinded by the aura of
heroism.
The poem starts in a dramatic manner. John Brown went to
the battlefield in search of glory. His mother was proud that
he was going to serve his country. She always wanted him to
become a soldier, wear a uniform and fight for the country
like a true patriotic son of the motherland.
Pride of the mother is heightened seeing his son holding the
weapon of war. Serving the country in armed forces was
considered to be a noble and dignified profession. She also
instructs him to execute all the commands of his senior
officers and in doing so he will be rewarded with a lot of
medals which she wants to decorate her walls with. His
mother desires the fame and power and completely overlooks
the dangers of war.
She flaunts and boasts and wants everyone to know that her
son is a soldier and that he is going away to fight a war. We
are acquainted with John Brown’s mother’s point of view.
She is not just delighted that her son is a soldier but also
wants to boast about it to people that she has raised a soldier,
a brave boy, who is off to fight for what she believes is a good
cause. She has a hollow attitude as she expects everyone to
praise her and her son.
She is immensely happy when she receives letters from her
son and shares her ecstasy with her neighbours. The letters
contain all about the skills and feats that he has achieved.
These things the neighbours called “a good old-fashioned
war” as though it were a normal and repetitive event. She
ridicules the neighbour’s who were of the opinion that war has
lost its glamour, she focuses on the heroic aspect of war and
fails to see the reality.
For a long time J B did not write to his mother, she did not
receive a letter for about ten months or more. A long waiting
came to an end with the arrival of a letter that said “Go down
and meet the train Your son’s a-coming home after the war”.
She is overjoyed as her dream of seeing her son as a soldier
would be fulfilled. She was impatiently waiting to see her
soldier son. She expected to see a refined soldier wearing a
uniform as a prideful figure but there was an unforeseen
situation.
John Brown’ face was disfigured and had scars of bullets. He
wore a metal brace around his waist which helped him in
walking. He seemed lucky to be alive after all the injuries that
he had suffered form. His torment was not only limited to
physical harm but he also suffered from the mental trauma
that he had to go through. He spoke in a low voice which was
unrecognisable to his own mother. The expectation and the
reality of the mother were incongruent. John Brown’s
condition expresses his pain and horrific experience of the
war. He is so altered in physical appearance that his own
mother is not able to recognize him. It brings out the evils of
war. His mother wanted to know what his enemies had done
to him. She was both shocked and hurt to see her son in this
state. She could not bear to look at her son’s distress and
looked away. Her pain was immense and unbearable.
 J B condemns his mother’s act of pursuing him to be a
soldier. His mother thought that he joining the army was the
best thing that he could do but she was wrong. While his
mother was drenched in glory, he was experiencing pain. J B
says that she was not in his situation to watch the horrors of
the wars that he had seen. Wars only bring death and
destruction.
J B goes on to narrate his horrific experience on the
battlefield. When he was in a do or die situation and the
enemy advanced towards him he could only see another
human being similar to him. He did not even know why he
was supposed to kill them. Here the poet talks about Universal
Brotherhood and Fraternity; it is at the end that he realized the
loss of human lives. It is ironic and delivers a strong message
regarding the realities of war. John B tries to comprehend the
reason for him being in the battlefield he feels that soldiers
must just follow orders+puupet quotewhen they are asked to
without the slightest consideration or remorse. However his
strings of thoughts are broken as a cannonball comes through
the smoke and roar and blows his eyes away. Soldiers are all
mere puppets in the hands of the evil war mongers.
His mother not aware of the consequences of war was totally
broken. “dropped his medals down into her hand.” The act of j
b placing the medals into his mother’s hand leaves us
questioning if a simple empty token of light was worth all the
suffering he went through. War has a universal appeal and the
poet does not mention the name of the war. Writers have
idealized war heroes and disregarded defeated enemies.
However war poets in Literature have changed their
perception of war by showcasing its disastrous effects.
Contrast to GoI.
Qoutes:
1. “And she bragged about her son with his uniform and
gun”
2. “good old-fashioned war”
3. “Go down and meet the train Your son’s a-coming home
from war”
4. “That I was a puppet in play”
5. “And he dropped his medals down into her hand”