What kind of a woman was John Brown’s mother?

What can you say about the relationship that she shared
with her son?

Answer:
The poem ‘John Brown’ talks about John Brown, the soldier who exhibits his heroism in the battlefield to please his mother, but
eventually realises the futility of the war.Bob Dylan describes the vanity of the mother’s heart when he describes how her face breaks
into a grin when she sees him in his uniform. She is already thinking of the umpteen medals and laurels that will be bestowed upon him
for his services in the war. She is pompous and takes immense pride in her son for being a soldier, but overlooks the harsh possibility of
death that the war could inflict upon him.
Being a mother, she should definitely be proud of her son fighting for his country; however, she only focuses on the accolades and
medals that he will get. She does not spare a thought for the ordeals that he willhave to endure. Being a soldier and taking lives are not
easy tasks. But she doesn’t worry much when receives no letter from him for ten months. The opportunity to see her soldier son returning
with medals from the war thrills her as she can now proudly be called the mother of a war veteran. When she sees John, she doesn’t
recognize him. He is not the same person that he was when he left for the war. He is completely broken, mentally and physically. He was
blinded by a canon and lost his arm fighting. The war also left him psychologically disturbed as he realized the futility of it. But, none of
this concerns the mother at first.
Bob has exhibited John’s discontent at his mother who, he felt, was unmindful of the pain that he endured in the war, both physically and
mentally. He says that his mother betrothed herself to the vanity of being called a soldier’s mother, which made her unconscious of his
agony that her son was going to experience in the war. He gets rather disillusioned as he realizes that the soldiers are but pawns in the
hands of governments or authorities. He gets shocked when he sees that the enemy he is supposed to fight looks a lot like him. His
mother doesn’t understand any of this because she was not in his shoes. So he drops all the medals that he earned in her hands before he
turns to leave.

Comment on the various themes of the poem ‘John Brown’

Answer:
In the song “John Brown”, renowned singer Bob Dylan has expressed his thoughts about the idea of war, and its effects on soldiers. He
portrays soldiers as victims of a system that expects heroism form them without counting the cost they have to pay to keep the image
intact. In the poem, we are told that wars are fought for inexplicable causes and soldiers are nothing but pawns used to satisfy some
authority’s ego. In the fight that ensues between two or more different countries or nations, soldiers are the ones who suffer the most.
Their lives are more often than not collateral damage as those who survive come back home with broken bodies and psychological
disorders.
John Brown, the eponymous hero of the song, realizes that due to someone’s irrational whims he was fighting other soldiers, who looked
no different from him. Other than being an anti-war song, John Brown is also about the retribution that the ceremonial hero experiences
unknowingly. He becomes a soldier to please his mother, who thinks that going to the war is the ‘best thing’ her son could do. The song
unveils the depth of a wounded soldier’s feelings and unravels the dark side of the war. Therefore, John Brown is an anti-war poem.
Along with it being critical of wars in general, the poem also explores the problem of the glorious attraction of wars. People glorify wars
just like John Brown’s mother did. She thought that becoming a soldier and going to fight in the war was the best thing her son could do.
This is a common phenomenon all over the world. People not only glorify the wars but also tend to worship the soldiers as heroes. While
it is true that the soldiers show tremendous courage in fighting the war, it should not be forgotten that these ‘heroes’ suffer too much just
because certain political entities wish to overshadow their enemies through a display of power. The poet debunks the myth of heroism
associated with fighting the war through the eponymous character John Brown. On the battlefield, John Brown starts to wonder what he
was doing. When he sees the enemy at close quarters, he is shocked to see that there is no difference between the enemy and himself. It
is then that he realizes that he is nothing but a “puppet in a play”.

Comment on the form and structure of the song “John Brown”.

Answer:
The song composed by Bob Dylan is made up of of twelve stanzas that narrate the story of a soldier named John Brown. It doesn’t
follow any set rhyme scheme, but a few stanzas use rhyming words, such as –
‘neighbourhood’ and ‘understood’ in stanza 3;
‘way’ and ‘away’ in stanza 8;
 ‘tryin’ and ‘mine’ in stanza 10;
‘play’ and ‘away’ in stanza 11;
and ‘stand’ and ‘hand’ in stanza 12.
Dylan has used certain literary devices in his song to bring out the essence of a great anti-war song. In the song, he has repeated a few
phrases/ lines such as:
Oh! Good old-fashioned war! – In this ironic refrain Dylan has captured the spirit of a futile war. A war that commences from a wrong
reason rears nothing called glory.
Oh! Lord! Not even recognise his face! – This phrase brings out the trepidation that the war inflicted upon John, who did not die in the
war, but suffered in the most horrendous manner one can imagine.
Oh! Lord! Just like mine! – In this phrase John has voiced his scepticism over the purpose of the war. As he found the enemy soldier’s
face similar to his face, he is baffled about the relevance of killing one’s own kind.
Dylan has used Alliteration in the lyrics of his song. A few consonant sounds are repeated to create a flow in the song. For example:
“…fight on a foreign shore”
“He stood straight…”
“I was just a puppet in a play.”
“And he dropped his medals down into her hand.”
The final lines of the song express irony as John Brown succeeds in fulfilling his mother’s desire of him winning medals in the war.
Unfortunately, this happens after he paying hugely for the cause. His mother is far from happy on taking medals from her soldier son
who is crippled for life by the war.

In critically delving into the lyrics of "John Brown," it is obvious that Dylan is relating the story of the
effects of the Vietnam War upon the individual soldier. This anti-war motif has been prevalent and made
popular by poets such as Wilfred Owen (WWI)"John Brown" is an anti-war song by renowned singer-
songwriter Bob Dylan. The song describes a young man named John Brown leaving for war as his mother
proudly looks on. His mother tells her young soldier-son that he will return home with medals and
honor. His mother represents old fashioned nationalistic fervor, and John Brown represents the pawn in
the nationalist game of war. The reader does not know where John Brown goes off to fight, but we know
it is "a foreign shore." For the nationalist Americans, it is enough to know the enemies are "foreign."

At first, John Brown's mother receives letters from her son, and she is pull of pride. Eventually, she stops
receiving letters, until one day, she receives one telling her to meet her son at the railway station. His
mother, in all her nationalistic pride, prepares to welcome her soldier son, home from fighting that
"good ol' fashioned war."

However, once her son steps off the train, she is horrified to see he has sustained immense injuries and
is disabled from the war. Thus, the mother's pride in verse three ("That’s my son that’s about to go, he’s
a soldier now, you know") is ironically juxtaposed to the end of the poem in verse eight: “Oh tell me, my
darling son, pray tell me what they done. How is it you come to be this way? ... And the mother had to
turn her face away." In this way Dylan illustrates war as inglorious and emphasizes the price that soldiers
pay for "glory." Painfully and slowly, he tells his shocked mother about the horrors of war, the humanity
between him and the so-called enemy, and how he realized he was just a "puppet in a play." In
painful irony, before he turns away to walk with assistance of a metal brace, he drops medals into his
mother's hands.