How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He was sick and probably out of his head and he was badly hurt and he was lonesome deaf but he was also alive and he could still hear far away and sharp the sound of a telephone bell. (1.32)
Does Joe change his opinion about being alive once he realizes the extent of his wounds? At what point does the scale tip? On a side note, what's up with his insistence that being deaf is lonesome?
Quote #2
How am I going to work now? They don't think of that. They don't think of anything but doing it their own way. Just another guy with a hole in his arm let's cut it off what do you say boys? Sure cut the guy's arm off. It takes a lot of work and a lot of money to fix up a guy's arm. (3.11)
It's hard to tell here whether Joe is being melodramatic (considering that they just cut off his arm) or if he's on to something about the whole wartime situation being dehumanizing and routine. Joe also makes it a point here to bring up money, one of the book's big themes: it would be too expensive to fix Joe's arm (he thinks), so the doctors just decided to cut it off. That means that in the grand scheme of things, money is more important than, say, an individual's ability to work and enjoy the rest of his life. Who decides what's too expensive? Who decides how much money an arm is worth?
Quote #3
It was a hundred and twenty-five in the shade and there wasn't any shade and he felt like he was smothering under a white hot blanket and all he could think was I've got to stop I've got to stop. (4.4)
The strenuous physical labor described here contrasts with the suffering Joe is going through in the present, where instead of having his body worked to near its breaking point, Joe is condemned to never have a working body again. It's the same when sex is described in the novel: we realize this is something Joe can never have again, so reading his thoughts about it makes his present situation seem that much worse to us.