...The novel All Quiet On The Western Front was written by Erich Remarque about a young adult whose generation was essentially obliterated. After being in the frontlines for the Central Powers in World War I, Remarque saw how destroyed his generation was and wrote a work of realistic fiction that was based on his own experiences of fighting on the side of the germans. Soon, Remarque created a resounding story dealing with how the war had destroyed a generation of children. Remarque is far from accusing and does an excellent job of not exaggerating the horror of war. An example of this is when the boys are talking about how Kemmerich's “…leg is amputated. He looks ghastly, yellow, and wan,” (7). That is, sadly, just how the war was; it was gruesome and risky. World War I was just over 100 years ago, and one of the last wars where amputation was a common practice. People forget this happened, that often people got amputated to be saved. Remarque has given us straight up facts of what the conditions were, and doesn’t accuse war of anything. The author also strays from exaggeration how the war was. Some of the appeal to the novel is being able to vicariously live through Paul, without much more detail than “someone shot him point blank in the...
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...This story made me think about the things returning soldiers have to deal with. It also made me think about the transition they go through. They have to go from the mindset of war to the civilian world. The transition is a big overwhelming change. Many soldiers come back detached from the world. Many never get the help they need although and can not completely recover from the things they have seen and done. When someone has PTSD it seems as though many are lonely and not sure of their place in this world. He seems to feel guilty from what had happened in war. This short story also made me think about how it must feel to come back from war and jump into a normal life. I think it would be weird to come from war and have to work at a normal job....
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...“War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.”-Karl Kraus. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, displays how the brutality of war continues to affect generations of soldiers. The horrors war can cause are timeless. Remarque shows this by writing about how war causes suffering not only towards the family of soldiers, but to soldiers themselves. He describes how when back home after the war, soldiers feel out of place. He also talks about how war brings out the worst in people and how it affects the mental/emotional health of soldiers. The lives of sons, daughters, parents and friends are lost for the purpose of what? War. The effects these losses can cause are seen when Maria Remarque states, “I must go and see Kemmerich's mother. I cannot write that down. This quaking, sobbing woman who shakes me and cries out on me: "Why are you living then, when he is dead?"--who drowns me in tears and calls out: "What are you there for at all, child, when you --"--who drops into a chair and wails: "Did you see him?...
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...All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, tells the story of Paul Baumer, a German soldier, and his comrades’ experiences in combat during World War I. Paul Baumer, along with a few other men, enlisted in the military after being persuaded by their school master, Kantorek. Although “no one [had] the vaguest idea what [they] were in for” (Remarque 11), the men still decided to join the war. Throughout the story, Paul instantly discovers that the war is not all that it is made out to be. Paul and his comrades struggle to survive on a daily basis. The men realize that the only way for them to stay alive is to develop friendships between one another and stick together. The horrifying images of death and the sacrifices they are required to make cause the soldiers to lose their identity. Through the eyes of the “Lost Generation,” Remarque is able to portray the sacrifices, comradeship, and the brutality of war a typical soldier of World War I endured....
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...War is a life changer. In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Paul Bäumer engaged in what would be the fight for his country and life. Paul was a 19 year old boy who was persuaded to join the German Army shortly after World War 1 by his schoolteacher. Unknowingly, he and his schoolmates have signed up for their own deaths. During the war, they matured both physically and mentally with concise thoughts and actions, eventually feeling disconnected and out-of-place when entering society. Through its gruesome and emotional moments, Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front portrays the grim reality and rare glories of war. The inevitable constituent of war is death. With deaths from both sides of a battle, families are broken apart and friendships are broken. War changes people from innocent individuals to killing machines. Many are deprived of their sense of feeling for others, which restrains their ability to connect with the outside world, since it becomes a challenge to connect with people in a personal level. As Remarque stated, “even though they may have escaped shells, [they] were destroyed by the war”. Fortunately for Paul Bäumer, only his mental state suffered through the conflicts, but many of his close friends have died in the line of duty, leaving him a shell of what he once was. Their deaths were...
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...All Quiet On The Western Front is a book about a boy named Paul and all his challenging experiences from World War I. The war changed his outlook on all perspectives of life. The war changed him as a person, and not for the good. In All Quiet On The Western Front, it tells the story of a young man, Paul Baumer, and his experiences of World War I. Paul fought voluntarily in the German army at the age of 19. His friend Kemmerich has his leg amputated and is slowly dying, so Paul takes his boot to Muller, as he requested. Paul’s crew gets involved in a gruesome battle with infantrymen. The battle was very terrifying, the men’s bodies were being blown apart and giant rats ate the remains of all the men. After the battle, Paul and...
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...“All Quiet on the Western Front” is one of the most influential war novels. It is significant because it features views and feeling of soldiers, who served during World War I, from their perspective. Author, Erich Maria Remarque, was a veteran himself so everything that is written in the novel is coming from his own experience. One of the best qualities of this book and the reason for its success is the writing style. Remarque uses symbolism, imagery, narrator point of view, specific tone and allegory throughout the whole book without these techniques there is no way this book would make so many humans realize what soldiers are going through. At war only men that can understand each other are soldiers themselves, they go through same horror...
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...Thesis/Introduction: In Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, he describes the firsthand experiences of soldiers in the war, in an extremely romantic and emotional standpoint. The sentimental language coupled with literary devices such as imagery help us understand just how gruesome the war was from a lense that we cannot derive from our history textbooks. The information that we assimilate from reading textbooks is that of an atomized society, where the individual does not matter in the general picture. By reading passionate narratives from people who were in the proximity of battle, we start to develop an understanding for the distraught emotions of the soldiers instead of the “9 million dead” that we see recur in history textbooks....
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...How All Quiet on the Western Front Changes Hearts and Minds Stephen Crane’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” gives a new perspective into the real terror and dehumanizing violence of war and its impact on the soldiers who fought it. Instead of romanticizing and glorifying the war, the book gives an accurate description of war as soldiers experienced it allowing readers to be more adequately informed. It is a strong anti-war rhetoric due to its accurate depiction of the false romantic ideals, dehumanization of soldiers, and continual subjection to poor living conditions which often prevented soldiers from returning to live healthy lives after the war. During this period, many teachers and recruiters went to classrooms and painted a false romantic, patriotic, heroic picture of war, rallying young men to join the cause. Men who were able to fight faced ostracism and condemnation if they did not volunteer in the war...
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...On June 28th, 1914 was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and Sophia in Sarajevo. That was the final straw. Great Britain declared war on August 1st, 1914 and as a French allie, I was immediately sent out to begin fighting. It’s been a long two years and it just got a whole lot harder. 4 days ago, on July 1st began the Battle of the Somme. Along with the British, my troops and I tried to smash through German lines. The Germans had put up barbed wire that was so meshed together that you could barely see through it; they must have been doing it for months. The trenches are awful. They’re dirty and unsanitary. There’s rats running around everywhere, eating pieces of our bread, and the sound of vigorous battling is always there. I don’t...
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...Max’s Note: The themes of these stories cannot be accurately compared because of the time period and acceptable behavioral differences. 1918 is not the same thing as 700 BC, and the themes of the books reflect upon the behavioral differences. All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich M. Remarque) and Perseus (Bernard Evslin) were two very different stories with two very different themes. All Quiet on the Western Front had many different ways of portraying its darker themes, one example of this is derived from the quote “It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”(5). This obviously portrays that war is a crushing force that destroys the participants inside and out....
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...In the course of war, one usually encounters immense challenges and undergoes terrible heartbreak due to the abhorrent events seen and experienced during combat. Paul Baumer goes through the hardest and most mentally trying events during warfare, constantly testing his will to continue fighting for his country. Baumer has already experienced the loss of close comrades, so the start to a sudden fall of many others ceases his motivation to move on. As the war begins, men quickly die around Paul and “all at once everything seems to [him] confused and helpless”, making him feel worthless to his combatants (Remarque 87). With the recent deaths that have occurred on the front, Paul faces constant challenges causing the aura of helplessness. When...
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...During the 1900’s, war was often romanticized. When a man went off to war they were viewed as a hero for being patriotic and defending their country. Most people thought they would come out of war as a better man because of what they were told. However they did not know what they were in for. In the book, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque the negative effects of war on an individual are shown. The main character, Paul Bäumer, is a soldier during World War I. The reader can see what the war has done to him and his comrades. In the beginning of the story, Paul explains how war has changed the lives of him and his comrades forever. He says, “We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces...we believe in such things no longer. We believe in war” (pg. 87-88). Paul has explained that his generation...
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...In “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque, I believe the author wrote the novel with the intent of an anti-war message. Throughout the novel, he portrays the horrors of war through what the soldiers experienced during World War I. Remarque demonstrates his anti-war message by showing the effects the war had on the young men, providing horrific details of war, and The author shows how young men are sent into war at such early ages, haven’t yet to experience much of life other than war. “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another”...
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...For my Book Talk, I read the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, and the character I'll be using for the Horoscope Profile is Paul Bäumer, the main character in the story. After I have finished the novel, I've noticed that Paul Bäumer for sure fits the description of a Taurus, the sign of the bull. The first reason why I chose the Taurus zodiac sign because a Taurus is always deliberate in actions and making decisions. As what horoscopedates.com put it in their website “This sign is often very deliberate in their actions, relaxed, and enjoys all of the sensual pleasures that abound in this dimension. Food, drink, and luxury, are all sought after by the typical taruean because this sign loves luxury and they are willing to work hard to obtain it moreover they are slow to anger, but once disturbed they can be volatile.” This description best suits Paul because at one point through the novel he and his friends were hiding in a dugout due to heavy fire and mortar strike, few hours later his friends decided to leave the dugout but Paul told them that he had a feeling that if they go out they will get killed, however one of his...
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