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All quiet on the western front embodies the horror of war
All quiet on the western front embodies the horror of war
All quiet on the western front embodies the horror of war
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War can be very traumatizing to anyone who is involved in it so the toll it takes on the soldiers isn’t surprising. The people in Germany thought that fighting in the war was the best thing anyone could do for their country. However, they haven’t considered what it would actually be like. Since there’s so many soldiers, it’s hard to feed them all. Most times they only have a little bit of food to eat and they jump on the opportunity to have a larger share since some of them have died. In one of the scenes, Paul’s group was relaxing, something that rarely happens, and spotted a few geese. The group went wild trying to catch them because that meant they would’ve had a good dinner that night. Conditions in the trenches were bad as well. Some days were very cold and other days were the opposite. Lice was all around and the ground was always muddy. If civilians knew about these conditions, they wouldn’t glorify the war as much.
The directors of “All Quiet on the Western Front” put some pretty good actors into their movies. Their lines seemed to flow together perfectly and wasn’t choppy. However, there’s one thing that seemed to be off. Whenever the supporting characters died, they did it dramatically. If they were stuck by a bomb, they flung their weapons into the air
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and fell unrealistically. They did the same thing when they were shot. Also, some of them seemed to not even be touched and they still fell and were dead. This could’ve been acted out better and in a way that would make it look realistic and unnoticeable. Other than that, everything seemed to be on point. The music went perfectly with what was going on in the scenes. There were some literary techniques involved in this screenplay. Character development and foreshadowing were 2 of them. Since Paul was the main character, he would be the one expected to develop the most. Paul seems to be a kind and compassionate person at the beginning of this film and he loved to hang out with his friends. During his time at the battlefield his friends start to die. As he realizes he can’t do anything to prevent his friend’s deaths, he learns that he has to switch off his emotions like grief and fear. His emotions would only slow him down. If he were to grieve over every of his friends who died, he would be grieving a long time. Fear would also not be helpful in his situation. Although foreshadowing plays a limited role, it’s still there. When Paul was on leave, he went to go visit the home of his friend who had died a slow and painful death in the hospital. He talks to the mother of his friend and lets her know that he died. The mom then asks him if her son suffered while he died and asks Paul not to lie. Paul, wanting to spare her any more grief, lied, sweared on his life, and told the mother that her son died a quick and painless death. Paul sweared on his life and lied which suggests that he might die later in the film, which he did. I don’t think a young person would be interested in this film. I don’t think so because young people are usually interested in today’s movies and wouldn’t want to sit through an event that happened a long time ago. Movies would also have to be new and popular for them to even consider watching them. They might think that a war film is boring and not lame. Prior to watching the film, our class had a learned a lot about World War I.
We’ve learned enough to declare that “All Quiet on the Western Front” is historically accurate and realistic. I believe that there’s barely anything in the film that contradicts anything I’ve learned. The only thing I could say wasn’t right were the trucks in the movie. Although World War I took place from 1914-1918, the trucks used in the movie weren’t made until the 1930’s. Other than that, there wasn’t anything wrong with the movie. The weapons in the movie, like the poison gas and the tanks, were the same ones we learned about while studying this subjects. The trenches and the sandbags were also something that was
consistent. The number of strengths of the screenplay were greater than the weaknesses. The strengths were the setting and the set-up of the setting and the only weakness was the acting of the supporting characters. The setting was very accurate compared to the actual setting of World War I. It precisely portrayed World War I in Germany almost 100 years ago. The set-up of the setting is very underrated. The crew of the movie designed No Mans Land just as someone would imagine it. They included major things like the deep trenches both sides had, to the little things like the sandbags and the skeletons in the pits made by bombs. This might’ve been the thing the crew spent the most time on but it was worth it because it ended up looking flawless. The movie would’ve been great if it weren’t for the acting of the supporting characters. Their deaths were very unrealistic and could’ve been better. This was the only thing wrong with the movie. In conclusion, “All Quiet on the Western Front” very accurately portrayed how World War I actually was. It showed all the harsh parts and the realities of it. This is what the author wanted. There were some goofs but it was strong enough to counter the weaknesses. It was very historically accurate and related to almost everything we learned in class. I’m not a big fan of war movies but after watching this, I highly recommend it.
All Quiet On the Western Front By 1929, the example of Remarque's altered text of All Quiet on the Western Front, as Hemingway pointed out, gave further proof of greater intolerance in America than in England. Aldington's experience with Death of a Hero, however, would prove the exception. This war novel is actually an anti-war novel, tracing the lives and losses of a young group of soldiers caught in the brutality of World War I. Gripping, realistic, and searing with a vision inconsistent with post-war German character, this book caused Remarque to receive death threats and to leave Germany to live and work in Hollywood. (All Quiet on the Western Front) The differences between the English and American versions of Remarque's novel are instructive. Remarque originally had trouble publishing Im Westen nichts Neues in Berlin. It was rejected by the prominent and conservative Fischer Verlag before being accepted by the liberal house of Ullstein Verlag. It was the grim reality of Paul Baumer's victimization in the war, the disillusioned antiwar sentiments and pacifism of the characters that proved problematic for German leftists and nationalists alike, not the matter-of-fact language of the soldiers. But A. W. Wheen's translation for Putnam's English edition, retaining such words as shit, fart, piss-a-bed, turd, and masturbate had to be converted for Little, Brown's American edition. Skit became swine, piss-a-bed became wet-a-bed, cow-skit became cow dung, and the comical simile like a fart on a curtain pole became like a wild boar. Masturbate and turd dropped out of the American edition completely. (Firda, Richard Arthur 1993) Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they ...
At the beginning of chapter seven, the Second Company is taken further back to a depot for reinforcements, and the men rest. Himmelstoss wants to get on good terms with the boys and shows them kindness. Paul starts to respect him after seeing how he carried Haie Westhus when he was hit in the back. Tjaden is won over too after he learns that Himmelstoss will provide extra rations from his job as sergeant cook.
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times goes by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.
When any book is made into a movie, one of the most difficult tasks is interpreting the visual aspects, and viewers are often disappointed by the result as it is not how they imagined it while reading the book. While the “All Quiet on the Western Front” novel was limited only by the reader's imagination, The movie's action scenes were anything but realistic and the special effects did not stand the test of time as modern films contain much more sophisticated special effects... While movies should never be judged by special effects alone, the film was certainly not enhanced by them. In fact modern audiences might even consider the effects as humorous which was certainly not the intention.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” was written to tell the story of a young German soldier named Paul Bäumer’s experiences in the fight against France in World War I. I believe that a statement by the author, Erich M. Remarque, sums up the main struggle for Paul; “Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other…” (Back Cover) This hate is not always present. When the French were attacking the base where Paul was stationed, he saw their faces and thought about how they looked like normal young men and not like horrible enemies.
The ending to All Quiet on the Western Front manages to tie in and include elements from at least three major themes in the book, that is, the horrors of war, the fragility of human life, and the effect of war on the soldier.. Throughout the book we see each of these themes illustrated, with each at it’s height in the conclusion. As the novel draws to a close, we see increasingly how the war is brutal and unforgiving. An example of this is when Muller is shot at point blank range, and suffers for thirty minutes in agonizing pain, while all that Paul and the others can do is stand by and watch as their friend dies. Another horror that is illustrated in the end of the book is how that, by the end of the book, every major character and minor character that has been introduced is dead, and that they are not even remembered and are written off. This detail ties into the next theme which plays a major role in the ending, the fragility of human life. Throughout the book, we see how fragile human life is, with Kemmerich dying early in the novel, to the ending in which everyone eventually falls. We see Muller die a slow and painful death due to an abdominal shot, Katcinzky die because of a random piece of shrapnel, and Paul even dying at the end of the novel due to an unknown reason. In th...
The war scarred the soldiers permanently, if not physically then mentally. After the war the soldiers usually never recovered from the war. Two of the most common side affects of the war were shell shock and stir crazy. When suffering from shell shock a soldier’s brain doesn’t function properly and the man is a “vegetable”. This means the man is alive but he can’t do anything because he is in a state of shock because of the war. Stir crazy is a mental illness caused by the firing of so many bullets that when no bullets are heard by the victim he goes insane. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started. Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: “where’s Himmelstoss?” Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.” (P 131) Even the big men like Himmelstoss are scared to go fight. They too go through the mental illnesses like stir crazy and shell shock. “He is in a panic; he is new to it too.
In one of the greatest war novels All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about a soldier Paul Bäumer who was enrolled into the army with his classmates where they had to face horrendous obstacles and had to see vivid consternations. wistfully after all Paul went through from watching his comrades die in combat, he had died near the ending of World War 1. Paul was a person who is repulsed by the idea of war. The brutality of war that he had experienced with his companions has caused them to lose faith and have a special hostility to war. Paul would've wanted the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” to show the people who are out of harm's way that war is not what it seems. There are casualties from soldiers choking
Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different as described here. "As if something is inside us, in our blood, has been switched on." The front makes Paul more aware and switched on as if his senses and reactions are sharpened. I think Paul and his friends are frightened when they are near the front line. After they wire the fences and they are heading to the barracks their group start to be fired at by the enemy. They manage to get through the shelling unscathed but they hear a horse that has been shot. The horse makes a terrible noise of anguish and is in terrible pain and it has been shot as the author describes here. "The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and it guts are trailing out." This shows that there are not just human casualties of war; the innocent lives of animals can be affected as much as humans who fight in wars. Detering-one soldier in Pauls group-says." It is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war." I agree with Detering, as animals had no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks Paul Baumers company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large...
Even when the novel begins, all Paul has known is death, horror, fear, distress, and despair. He describes the other soldiers in his company, including his German school mates with whom he enlisted after constant lecturing from their school master, Kantorek. The pressures of nationalism and bravery had forced even the most reluctant students to enlist. However weeks of essential training caused any appeal the military may have held for them to be lost. Corporal Himmelstoss, the boys’ instructor, callously victimizes them with constant bed remaking, sweeping snow, softening stiff boot leather and crawling through the mud. While this seems to be somewhat cruel treatment, it was in fact beneficial for the soldiers.
One of the hardest events that a soldier had to go through during the war was when one of their friends was killed. Despite their heartbreak they could not openly display their emotions. They could not cry because soldiers do not cry. Such an emotional display like crying would be sign of weakness and they didn’t want to be weak, so they created an outlet. “They were actors. When someone died, it wasn’t quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted”(19). Of course things were scripted especially when Ted Lavender died. It had happened unexpectedly and if they didn’t have something planned to do while they were coping they would all have broken down especially Lieutenant Cross. Cross...
World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.
All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.
Erich Maria Remarque wrote the perspective of Paul Baumer, a German who was the supposed “enemy” in World War I. However, Remarque humanizes the opposing side, as he reminds the audience that soldiers are average humans too; not murderers. His motive for writing All Quiet on the Western Front is to describe the gap between paradise and war; emphasizing the horrors of war, the alarming transformation from men to animal in combat, and the collapse of young men in the following generation. While Deterring, Kat, and Paul are suddenly swept with a sneak attack, the men quickly take shelter to escape being harmed. Faintly, they hear a noise that appear to be the cries of “wounded horses”...The men cannot stand the wailing as “it is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning...We are pale” (62). In a civilized society, the sorrow and wretchedness of an animal is unquestionably distressing for a human; nonetheless the soldiers encounter these experiences in their day to day lives, and eventually grow accustomed to. Himmelstoss emerges as he tells the soldiers that he is the head-cook. Paul pays attention to the substantial amounts of food in the cook-house he feels satisfied as the soldiers “momentarily have the two good things a soldier needs for contentment”(138).
Imagine being drafted into World War I as soon as you finish high school. You’d go from hearing the chirping of birds and people laughing everyday to constantly hearing bombs, guns, and the sound of soldiers dying everywhere. This is how it was in the movie, “All Quiet on the Western Front” 1979. This movie goes over one major subject which is World War I. The author created this movie to show people the harsh realities of war compared to what everyone believed it was. While analyzing this film, I will be discussing the plot and setting, the major themes, and my evaluation. I will also give a summarization and discuss how it’s related to to our classroom discussions.