The Drummer Boy of Shiloh

Have you ever felt too young for something? As if the world expects you to act older than you are? I have always felt this way. I am probably the youngest person in the 8^th grade. I’m only twelve, and I turn thirteen at the end of November. When I was four, I was in my third year of preschool, and my parents felt like I didn’t need a fourth year. That I could go into kindergarten as a four-year old. My teachers thought this as well, and so I went to kindergarten. Ever since then, I have always felt a tiny bit out of it. As if all the other kids were a lot smarter than me just because of the one-year age difference. That they knew more things then I did. In “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” by Ray Bradbury, I feel like Joby is experiencing this as well.

            Joby is younger than all the other soldiers by a lot. The youngest of the troop is eighteen, while Joby is only fourteen. Joby feels isolated from the other boys, the deserted island in the middle of the vast sea, the tree in the desert, the drummer boy in an army. The night before his first battle, Joby has no one to talk to, no one to calm his fears. He feels scared and doesn’t think he’ll live through the battle. “Me. I only got a drum, two sticks to beat it, and no shield.” I think Joby is jealous of the soldiers’ shields. In the literal term, they do have real, metal shields, but also figuratively they have the shield of immortality. A soldier knows he will live through the battle, he wishes and hopes with all his heart, because no one can imagine that they will ever die, then he feels like he is immortal, which is the reason he marches into battle. Joby is not feeling immortal. He knows he will be at the front of the army with only his drum to take the heat of the gunfire. He knows he will die, he doesn’t romantically think he won’t, he accepts it. And that’s why he cries.

            When the general comes to visit Joby, Joby describes the general’s scent as “fatherly”. Joby needs someone to look up to, and the general is the perfect person, better than any soldier in the army. The general tells Joby it’s okay to cry, that Joby is the heart of the army, that it’s Joby’s job to keep the men’s’ spirits going with a solid fast beat on the drum, and that the men and Joby are all young. “There’s your cheek, fell right off the tree overhead. Raw, raw the lot of you.” This makes Joby feel equal to the men, not a sad, young drummer boy who no one cares about. The general also mentions that he cried last night as well. I don’t think the general actually cried last night. I think he said that to show Joby that it’s all right to be scared, to give Joby the feeling that if the general is scared, then it’s okay for him to be scared too. The general also gives Joby a purpose for the battle, making Joby feel more included and important. The general changes the way Joby thinks about the battle and the army as well.

            Joby felt as if he had no purpose in the army. He felt as if he was too young, too small to be in a big army. That the only thing for him to do was to bang his drum and try not to get shot. After he talked with the general, Joby now has a purpose. He is the heart of the army: the sound beneath the footsteps of the marching men. He decides if they walk fast or slow. He decides if they are strong or weak. He is no longer a fourteen-year-old banging on a drum in front of a whole army with no shield to protect him from enemy fire. No, he is the drummer boy at Shiloh.