...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....
Words: 269 - Pages: 2
...“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?...
Words: 1076 - Pages: 5
...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...
Words: 618 - Pages: 3
...The years leading up to World War I were characterized by extreme nationalism as well as glorified militarism. As a result, the world was shocked and unprepared for the widespread destruction and devastation brought on by the war. As seen in the novel All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque as well as poetry by Wilfred Owen and Thomas Hardy, the harsh realities of WWI compelled soldiers to erase their own identities and essentially become emotionless beasts—changes that would render them incompatible with the society they came from. The setting of war sees soldiers not as unique individuals, but simply a generalized unit part of a bigger whole. Paul proves this by explaining how the strictly disciplined preparation for the...
Words: 844 - Pages: 4
...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....
Words: 285 - Pages: 2
...When people are all writing about the same thing, it’s not surprised to see that different people get different result. But if the subject they are writing about is The first world war, one of the greatest battles happened on the earth, and their articles are totally different on the attitude of the war, this would be a very valuable project for later generations to discuss. All Quiet On The Western Front is the most famous and influenceable anti-war novel during its period. In the novel, the main character Paul, is a solider from German. His duty is to fight with their enemy, France. However, Paul and his comrades found out that war is not a proud and just thing that the government had promised to them. During the war, they found out that they have already lost themselves: “Our thoughts are clay, they are moulded with the changes of the days;—when we are...
Words: 865 - Pages: 4
...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...
Words: 915 - Pages: 4
...“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...
Words: 269 - Pages: 2
...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....
Words: 340 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 1253 - Pages: 6
...(Benno Fürmann) who has aligned with his fellow troops in the trenches, hoping he can bring some minor sense of Christmas and understanding to them. His soprano partner Anna Sorensen (Diane Kruger) finds a way to be with him in the trenches on Christmas Eve, 1914. Meanwhile the disgruntle troops of all three sectors are planning meager festivities and a bit of relaxation even in the trenches as the bodies...
Words: 419 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 341 - Pages: 2
...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....
Words: 605 - Pages: 3
...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...
Words: 628 - Pages: 3
...Furthermore, Maria’s courage also shows through her action of escaping from the hotel where she stays with the drug dealers and other smugglers. More specifically, her journey to New York would be full of fear. Among the smugglers, one is incarcerated at the airport and the other one, Lucy, is killed by the drug dealers. Maria who found how they cruelly murdered Lucy tries to convince Blanca that they should leave the place immediately to survive in spite of the blackmail that she gave. Maria is threatened before the journey that if she escapes, deadly reprisals would be taken against her family and she would be killed if one pellet breaks or is found missing. In spite of the horrible blackmail, she decides to escape from the hotel room only...
Words: 260 - Pages: 2
