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Literary analysis everyday use
Emotional effects of war on soldiers
Two kinds of literary analysis questions
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The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers. Erich Remarque uses the character Paul Baümer to depict the image of war. All of the knowledge the reader acquires, of war and its effects on the men are through his thoughts and experiences. Due to this first …show more content…
Paul and his friends move back and forth between their camp and the front lines and for Paul almost nothing else exists but the game of war and the ground it is played on. life is extremely horrible for the men due to constant bombing lasting for days and rations of mouldy bread, these conditions show the literal effects on the soldiers. There are also rats living with them in the trenches that crawl over them in the night and the soldiers are forced to kill them like they are the enemy. Living in the trenches at the front surrounded by constant shelling and bombing means that the men live with a lot of anxiety and fear, causing some recruits to become mentally unstable. In the book some of the newer soldiers attempt suicide, showing that the war has damaged them to the point of them not caring for their lives
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.
All Quiet on the Western Front takes place in Germany where a group of young boys are first encouraged to join the military. Thinking that it would be a great adventure, they enlisted, not knowing the fate that lies before them. At first, the group is sent to training. They aren’t in a serious mood, thinking that war conditions aren’t as bad as they really are. When the boys are sent to the front, it is only then when they start to realize how war is not great. This is when the boys are cramped into the trenches. Some of the soldiers were shell-shocked because of the constant bombardment. When one of the boys was wounded, he was taken to a hospital where there were many wounded soldiers. Some soldiers had to have parts of their bodies amputated in order to survive. When Kemmerich was in the hospital, Müller asked for his pair of boots. The boots was a visible reminder to the boys of the cost of war. Paul then has to face his own conscience when he kills one of the Frenchmen. He doesn’t see the face of an enemy but just a face of another human being. He tries to comfort himself by promising to help the fallen soldier's family. After Paul is relieved from the front line, he decides to go on leave and return home. But when he tries to tell every one of the horrible conditions of the trenches, everybody either laughs him off or calls him a coward. Paul returns before his leave actually ended, wishing that he had never come home. In the end, when Paul loses Kat, Paul realizes that the war has destroyed his way of life.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that communicates many messages concerning war’s hidden horrors and gives insight into the unique experiences of soldiers. Remarque uses a wide array of language techniques and writing concepts to expose readers to truth of the simultaneously corrupt yet complex affair that is war. It is an important, genuine novel – the type that needs to exist to end dreadful human affairs, such as
“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 (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war imposes on soldiers, and at the conclusion of the book the empty shell resembling Paul stands testament to this. Not only does Paul lose himself throughout the course of the war, but he loses each of his 20 classmates who volunteered with him, further emphasizing the terrible consequences of warfare. The heavy psychological demands of life in the trenches and the harsh reality of war strip Paul of his humanity and leave him with a body devoid of all sentiment and feeling.
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.
To Pursue Remarque’s tone farther, his tone throughout this novel was rather easy to find because of the horrific, depressing, yet at the same time a little sympathetic, scenes. Paul explains a scene after a bombardment, “In the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing” (93). The bombs are killing several men at a time. Paul not only observes this in real life, he ultimately has to live through it. Once a war has been going on for a long period, the soldiers know that war is all about death.
use nature as the judge to condemn war, along with shocking imagery, so that his
In the novel All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque one of the major themes he illustrates is the effects of war on a soldier 's humanity. Paul the protagonist is a German soldier who is forced into war with his comrades that go through dehumanizing violence. War is a very horrid situation that causes soldiers like Paul to lose their innocence by stripping them from happiness and joy in life. The symbols Remarque uses to enhance this theme is Paul 's books and the potato pancakes to depict the great scar war has seared on him taking all his connections to life. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books represent the shadow war that is casted upon Paul and his loss of innocence. This symbol helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. The last symbol that helps the theme are the potato pancakes. The potato pancakes symbolize love and sacrifice by Paul’s mother that reveal Paul emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.
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.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
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.
The horrors a soldier experiences on the frontlines is the stuff of make believe made real. There are certain novels that attempt to spread a message about these nightmares. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a story that follows a German soldier named Baumer, as he tries to survive the horrors of the western front. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front Remarque expresses the important theme, that war contains a horrible level of brutality that no person should ever have to endure.
Throughout the course of an individual’s lifespan, a person will be confronted many times with a challenging event which would result in a revelation of some sort. The novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque”, is filled to the brim with epiphanies on how the characters had an outlook on humanity and war. These epiphanies show the reader how the character grew and had a dynamic personality and how these changes in their personalities show put emphasis on certain topics and themes throughout the story. The main character, Paul Baumer, goes through his own epiphany throughout the novel and realizes that his war, World War 1 is not what it seems to be.