The Brutal Truth of War
All Quiet On the Western front by Erich Maria Remarque is book about a group of young german boys from a small town that are sent to fight one of the most deadly wars of all time. During this time they are mental exposed to the brutal truth of war. Remarque uses Similes and Metaphors to express just how brutal war can be. By using these Rhetorical Devices to show visually imagery of what the brutal truth of war is. By using these literary devices the Author clearly expresses what war is like mentally for you and everything around you. All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the most powerful war books of all time due to the Similes and metaphors used by Erich Maria Remarque.
One of the most powerful tools that Remarque uses is visual imagery through Similes. Erich express how brutal and real war can be when he says "Like a big, soft jelly-fish, gas floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely”. The Author shows how real and deadly a cloud of gas is by making it seem like a dangerous but subtle animal. The author uses theses similes to try to show the most
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descriptive scenes of war. Remarque says "He had collapsed like a rotten tree” to relate how a person gains animal instincts and senses when in war. The Authors use of these powerful Similes shows just how being in war gives humans animal instincts which help them to survive. Remarque also uses Metaphors to show how brutally real war can be.
The Author says “We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer”.The Author is expressing how knowing how to use your gun is more important than what they learned at school their entire life. The Author expressed this to show how these young boys have been sent to war when they have spent their whole lives learning how to do math when the should have learned how to be a better soldier. Another example of Remarques powerful use of metaphors to express how brutal war is “'We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. The Author uses this metaphor to express they have become more like animals than humans to keep themselves alive in such a stressful and deadly environment. Also this shows how war changes people because of how brutal it
is. The powerful literary devices Remarque uses help express just how truly brutal war is like for those who have the misfortune of being sent there. The Author also shows the reader that nothing good comes from war. By using Similes and Metaphors to show visual imagery of how brutal war is the reader can truly understand how it must have been like for the young men sent to die there.Without these literary devices All Quiet on the Western front would not have been such a powerful and descriptive book that would have expressed just how brutal war is for the young men sent there to give their lives for their county.
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.
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
All Quiet on the Western Front includes many clear-cut examples of irony throughout the duration of the novel. From word play in the names of the characters that led to dramatic irony, to the paradox that is obvious in the setting, and finally the situational irony that is critical to the impact of the character’s death on the reader, Remarque provides depth to the novel and the emotional connection that the reader has to the characters in the book.
My groups theme is Alliances, and a excerpt from All Quiet on the Western Front that supported our theme for chapter 5 is “ We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another…What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.”. I believe that this excerpt relates to the theme of alliances because when Paul says “We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger…” it reminds me of how the countries that have formed an alliance always risk losing the war and many resources. Also, when Paul continues to say “What does he know of me
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front gives you detail and insight into the long, destructive “Great War”. Quickly, romantic illusions about combat are disintegrate. Enthusiastic teenage boys convinced to fight for their country by their patriotic teachers came back feeling part of a lost generation . This novel teaches us what a terrifying and painful experience World War I was for those fighting in the trenches on the front.
Everyone knows what war is. It's a nation taking all of its men, resources, weapons and most of its money and bearing all malignantly towards another nation. War is about death, destruction, disease, loss, pain, suffering and hate. I often think to myself why grown and intelligent individuals cannot resolve matters any better than to take up arms and crawl around, wrestle and fight like animals. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque puts all of these aspects of war into a vivid story which tells the horrors of World War 1 through a soldier's eyes. The idea that he conveys most throughout this book is the idea of destruction, the destruction of bodies, minds and innocence.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a historical novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel focuses on a young German soldier and the predicaments he encounters during his life on the front. The novel displays a powerful image to all of its readers and tends to have a long lasting effect on the way that they interpret war. All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that encourages nations to consider the horrible hostilities that war brings on humans before entering into global conflicts. From his graphic imagery and his detailed description of character relationships, Remarque depicts the brutality of the war at the front.
Many soldiers who come back from the war need to express how they feel. Many do it in the way of writing. Many soldiers die in war, but the ones who come back are just as “dead.” Many cadets come back with shell shock, amputated arms and legs, and sometimes even their friends aren’t there with them. So during World War I, there was a burst of new art and writings come from the soldiers. Many express in the way of books, poems, short stories and art itself. Most soldiers are just trying to escape. A lot of these soldiers are trying to show what war is really like, and people respond. They finally might think war might not be the answer. This is why writers use imagery, irony and structure to protest war.
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 soldiers and follows their experiences. 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. "
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.
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 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
...alize how little is accomplished politically by mass bloodshed. All Quiet on the Western Front also pokes holes into the common stereotype of World War I and II, often leading modern society to the impression that all german soldiers were black hearted and pitted against the allied forces with every bone in their body. Remarque dissolves this with his blunt candor, especially in Paul’s few days with corpse of Gérard Duval the French Printer. Paul soon sees that the two were comrades and could have easily been brothers if it weren’t for the war and their governments. Erich Remarque’s brilliant novel is one that educates the mind of the atrocities of war, and what political leaders often try to hide from their people. The classic work of literature teaches one of the horrors of war from a non-standard point of view, and shows the intimacy of a soldier and nature.
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.