Olivia Golfin English II Mrs. Galway 18 March 2024. How trench warfare develops the plot in All Quiet on the Western Front. Trench warfare helps develop the plot of All Quiet on the Western Front by affecting the protagonist's life. A lot of people don’t realize how badly war can affect soldiers. Some may have had to watch their friends die right in front of them. They can get horrible life-changing injuries and have to deal with awful conditions when fighting in the trenches. When going to war, you will never be the same person you were before. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque tells the tragic story of his character, Paul Baümer; a German soldier in WWI. Remarque based his book on his own experiences as a soldier, along with …show more content…
People died left and right. “For soldiers caught within this terrible blasted zone, the terrain seemed like a different planet; a cratered, eviscerated land of mud, wasted vegetation and unburied bodies”(N1). These trenches were muddy and dirty, with all the dead bodies it must have been hard to be there. Staying on the topic of unburied bodies, in the book a gruesome death is described:“His body collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were praying. Then his body drops clean away and only his hands with the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.”(p.112-113). I cannot even begin to imagine what this looks like, but I know it was hard to see. Seeing something like this was most likely a contributor to the problems soldiers have after war. They had to stay in the trenches for long periods of time: “I had been in the trenches for 42 consecutive days. Forty-two days–and nights of almost ceaseless vengeance, caution, water, mud, rats, cooties and sudden death.”(M1). The soldiers presumably got no sleep, they may have been hungry and of course they were dirty. These affairs badly affect them. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the conditions stated are described: “The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down.”(p.286). Not …show more content…
“Ever since human beings first went to war, the people who fight in those wars have sustained not only physical wounds but also psychological wounds, which may spare the body but scar the mind”(L1). Some soldiers may not get physically injured, but mentally changed. This issue is represented in the book when Paul goes on leave. He says: “I have been startled a couple of times in the street by the screaming of the tramcars, which resembles the shriek of a shell coming straight for one”(p.165). He was directly affected by trench warfare which helped the plot develop as it is now causing problems. This type of fighting affected his life and caused his friend to die: “He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years.”(p.31). This death affected the plot and added to the sadness and loneliness that Paul feels later in the story when many of his friends perish. As shown in All Quiet on the Western Front, the war caused men to die at young ages, which can be accurate to real life: “Hines never fully recovered from his injuries and spent the rest of his life in poor health. He died in 1925 at the age of 29”(M3). Fighting in the war can cause injuries that affect soldiers for their whole lives. Some mental effects of the war are described in the following quote: “Myers described the clinical course of
All Quiet on the Western Front is a book written by Erich Maria Remarque. It was a book written to reflect the human cost of war. It shows us how war has a hidden face that most people do not see until it is too late. In the novel, he describes a group of young men who at first think war is glorious. But as the war drags on, the group discovers how war is not all it is set out to be. As the war went on, they saw their friends either die or be permanently wounded. Then the end comes when there was only one person left.
“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.
All Quiet on the Western Front. Literary Analysis The U.S. casualties in the "Iraqi Freedom" conquest totals so far at about sixteen thousand military soldiers. During WWI Germany suffered over seven million deaths.
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that greatly helps in the understanding the effects war. The novel best shows the attitudes of the soldiers before the war and during the war. Before the war there are high morals and growing nationalist feelings. During the war however, the soldiers discover the trauma of war. They discover that it is a waste of time and their hopes and dreams of their life fly further and further away. The remains of Paul Baumer's company had moved behind the German front les for a short rest at the beginning of the novel. After Baumer became Paul's first dead schoolmate, Paul viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantorek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military. " While they taut that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already that death-throes are stronger.... And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone, and alone we must see it through."(P. 13) Paul felt completely betrayed. " We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short." (P 139) Views of death and becoming more comfortable with their destiny in the r became more apparent throughout the novel. Paul loses faith in the war in each passing day. * Through out the novel it was evident that the war scarred the soldiers permanently mentally. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started.
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the episodes soldiers go through. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to show the great change war has evolved to be. From lining your men up and charging in the eighteenth century, to digging and “living” in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers being exposed in your trench a short five meters away. Remarque makes one actually feel the fun and then the tragedy of warfare. At the beginning of the novel Remarque gives you nationalist feelings through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war Remarque shows how pointless war really is. This is felt when everyone starts to die as the war progresses.
All quiet On the Western Front, a book written by Erich Maria Remarque tells of the harrowing experiences of the First World War as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier. I think that this novel is a classic anti-war novel that provides an extremely realistic portrayal of war. The novel focuses on a group of German soldier and follows their experiences.
In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque reveals a dimmer sense of the cost of war. The main character in the book, German soldier, Paul Baumer, embodies the cost of war before he reaches his ultimate fate. The tactics and weapons used in World War 1 were more advanced compared to the past as a result of the industrial revolution. Germany was forced to fight a two-front war and this intensified the losses suffered by soldiers like Paul and the other men in the Second Company (Gomez 2016, German Strategy for a Two-Front War – Modern Weapons: War and the Industrial Revolution). Remarque’s observations that he shares with readers are not to World War 1 because it portrayed not only the physical but mental consequences of combat. Regardless of what era of war soldiers were involved in they were the ones who paid the price for facing so much death.
All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Delbert Mann, is based on the novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. It tells the story of a German schoolboy, Paul Baumer, and a group of his classmates, who journey from fantasies of heroic glory to the real horror of actual soldiering. Their journey is a coming of age tale that centers on the consternation of war and emphasizes the moral, spiritual, emotional, and physical deterioration suffered by the young 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 - A Book Review Professor’s Comments: This is a good example of a book review typically required in history classes. It is unbiased and thoughtful. The student explains the book and the time in which it was written in great detail, without retelling the entire story. a pitfall that many first time reviewers may experience. 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.
Amanda Salcedo Thompson English II Honors March 4, 2024. How does a specific death from All Quiet help illuminate the meaning of the work as a whole? All Quiet on The Western Front is packed full of dramatic themes that change from chapter to chapter. Often, the personal flaws or shortcomings of the characters are exploited to exhibit such themes. Erich Maria Remarque, the author of All Quiet of The Western Front, uses scenes that accentuate death to highlight the themes of guilt and tragedy that are present throughout the entirety of the book.
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, is a classic anti-war novel about the personal struggles and experiences encountered by a group of young German soldiers as they fight to survive the horrors of World War One. Remarque demonstrates, through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier, how the war destroyed an entire generation of men by making them incapable of reintegrating into society because they could no longer relate to older generations, only to fellow soldiers.