Comparison: All Quiet on the Western Front and The Red Badge of Courage

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The poet Wilfred Owen was one of many poets who were against war. He reflected this idea of anti-war in his poems, one of his poems called “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, mirrors most aspects of war all put together in this short still deep poem. An example of that would be when the speaker stated,” What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?”(1) The speaker asks is there any sound that marks our soldier’s death other than the sounds of church bell’s which are mostly rung to represent somebody’s absence? Clearly, the speaker sets anger as the tone of the poem through this question to show that soldier’s death is unremarkable.. The speaker compares the soldiers to a “cattle” which illustrates that soldiers are treated more like animals with no feelings and also shows how they are killed indiscriminately in war. Finally the line ironically contains an iambic pentameter which is a natural rhythm for such dark, grim, dull subject. The two novels, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, and All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, both present a similar idea of how soldiers are killed out there in the front comprehensively and the dehumanization of war towards its soldiers. The first novel is set during the Civil War, and it focuses on the psychological aspects of one soldier named Henry Fleming and how his naive thoughts about war constantly change through the course of the novel. The second novel presents the life of a soldier named Paul Baumer and his friends who were faced with the terribleness of war and how severely it affected their lives. The Red badge of Courage and All Quiet on The Western Front are similar in the way of how the main characters develop through the novel to change from naïve and innocent men ...

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...f how government represent political issues such as war to its people. For example, the government always choses a small group of people, in this case the soldiers, to be the sacrifice that the government makes during hard times (war). The government manipulates the soldiers by reminding them of patriotism without telling them how the real war is, So people has to understand the ways that government manipulate people in order for them to make the right choices and not be part of the sacrifices that it makes.

Works Cited

Owen, Wilfred. "Anthem for Doomed Youth." By Wilfred Owen 1893- 1819 : The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. United States of America, Chatham River Press, 1984. Print.
Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on The Western Front. United States of America, Ballantine Books. 1958. Print.

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