How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
His mind was wailing I wish to god I was in America I wish I was home. (12.14)
Wishing for home and familiarity is one of the most natural feelings in the world, and here, with Joe injured and extra-isolated, the knowledge of being in any kind of home would be a huge comfort.
Quote #8
He'd never had any particular ideas about America. He'd never been very patriotic. It was something you took without even thinking. But now it seemed to him that if he were really lying in an English hospital he had lost something he could never hope to get back. For the first time in his whole life he felt that it would be a little pleasant a little comforting to be in the hands of his own people. (12.16)
It's a bit ironic that Joe's patriotism comes out not when he was called to go out and fight for his country, but when he finds himself separated from it. Still, Joe seems to have gone off to war out of (enforced?) patriotism; what was the point of going if he didn't really believe in the cause? Why didn't he think harder about it? Did he have the chance to?
Quote #9
She was the Statue of Liberty and Aunt Jemima and the girl-you-left-behind to about a half a million dough-boys in Paris. (14.18)
Foreignness and unfamiliarity get to people, and any little bit of home that they can find suddenly becomes really comforting. Especially if it's a prostitute. Hey, by the way, what does it mean that the symbol of America here is a prostitute? Is there a suggestion that, in Joe's mind, the U.S. did something morally wrong for money and influence when it joined World War I? Is there a difference between the wishes of the American people and the wishes of big guys like politicians in Joe's mind?