“Monsters Out of Us All”: A Case Study in the Glorification of Violence in Contemporary American Wartime Literature and Artwork

Ben Percy’s short story “Refresh, Refresh” conveys inconsistent messages on the subjects of war and the military. There can be little question as to the central theme of the short story being unabashedly pro-violence from the very first paragraph; and to the very end, the plot events are decidedly pro-military. This otherwise straightforward message is complicated significantly, however, by the words of the characters themselves, many of the lines of which are decidedly anti-war in tone. Danica Novgorodoff’s graphic novel adaptation of Percy’s short story, on the other hand, flips this dichotomy on its head, but does not take nearly such an ambivalent approach to its message, as does Percy. In Novgorodoff’s graphic adaptation, the characters’ words are equal parts anti-military on the one side and anti-antiwar on the other. The plot of the graphic novel, while equally as pro-violence as that of the story, does not tend nearly so pro-military.

On page three of the short story, Josh and Gordon, albeit facetiously, describe the experiences of being in the military as follows: “Killing some crazy ass Muslims…Then get[ting] myself killed”. [1] On page six of the short story, after David Lightener comes to Josh’s house to deliver the news that Josh’s father had done just what Josh described military duty as being, that is, gotten himself killed, Josh and Gordon volunteer to do the same thing that got Josh’s father killed. [1] Whereas, in the short story, the boys join the military in an effort to make their fathers proud of them, in the graphic novel, this action is instead depicted as the last resort of desperate individuals with nowhere else left to turn. This coincides with the readily apparent lack in the graphic novel of any real desire on the part of the boys to make their fathers proud of them, in striking contrast to the central them of the short story. This is demonstrated in the top frames of page 77, where Cody refers to his father as an “asshole” and a “fucker”. [2]
From the very first scene, the graphic novel exhibits a disproportionately more violent theme, beginning with Cody’s quip in the lower right frame of page three concerning his supposed desire to “burn down” Disneyworld. [2]. In this light, it comes as no great surprise that the graphic novel later takes a starkly anti-antiwar position, with Cody stating, in the upper left frame of page 71, that Josh becoming a lawyer is tantamount to him being an Al-Qaeda terrorist. [2]

In the same scene, from page 19 to 22, as Josh expresses, in the short story, his opinion that being a soldier is getting oneself killed, the graphic novel adapts what is by far its most pro-military stance, when Corey Lightener brags, in the last frame of page 20, the first frame of page 21, and on page 22, about, among other things, how many Iraqis he shot. [2] This is one of many places at which the graphic novel departs radically from the short story.

In the scene form page 3 of the short story, Josh and Gordon respond to Lightener’s unwitting attempt to recruit them by ridiculing what soldiers do, earning them a shaming rebuke from Lightener. [1] In the same sequence on page 20 of the graphic novel, Lightener holds Josh, Gordon, and Cody up as premier examples of the sons of active service soldiers, in his attempt to recruit a couple of visibly younger children. [2] The scene on page 3 of the short story ends with Lightener setting up to con a skateboarder; [1] whereas on page 22 of the graphic novel, Lightener is readying to launch into a list of the misdeeds of an executed Middle Eastern dictator. [2]

With its pro-military and anti-antiwar dialogue, though notably neither pro-military nor Pro-war plot, Danica Novgorodoff’s graphic novel adaptation all but reverses the anti-military dialogue, though pro-military plot, of Ben Percy’s short story, while it maintains the pro-violence central theme of the story itself.

Works Cited:

1. Percy, Benjamin. “Refresh, Refresh.” The Paris Review. 175 (2005) http://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/5585/refresh-refresh-benjamin-percy
2. Novgorodoff, Danica, James Ponsoldt, and Benjamin Percy. “Refresh, Refresh: A Graphic Novel”. Array. 2009. http://books.google.com/books/about/Refresh_Refresh.html?id=RWCjPwAACAAJ