Betrayal is the truth that clings. It is a truth that is so painful that it clutches on to the mind, soul, and heart. Deep disappointment and agonizing anguish comes with betrayal. It is the betrayal that discredits false ideals and harbors empty hopes. In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, youths like Paul Baumer must deal with the disillusion they feel towards what they were taught to believe in. Once Paul and his fellow classmates are shipped off to war, he and the others learn that they have been betrayed on all fronts.
Teachers who cultivate the minds of the young and fuel their insatiable ideals become the primary objects of resentment for young soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front. It is a resentment produced by the lies that teachers fed their students. While on the front, Paul reflects back on his instructor Kantorek who “gave us [them] long lectures until the whole of our [their] class went under his shepherding to the District Commandant and volunteered” (Remarque11). Kantorek, as many other teachers, knew nothing about war but still sent mere innocents to face death. They did not know that “there is nothing glorious, fitting, or right about dying in the way they [the youths] see their comrades dying” (Henningfeld). Depictions of romanticized death in glorifying battle and of the chivalry of soldiers in combat, fighting for their motherland was what they would sermonize. They were sermons of false passions.
The life at the front made the youth quickly realize the deception and the lies from the older generation. They had been deceived by the older generation who failed to explain that war was not about glory or idealism but about crude survival. Paul talks about the life at the front and wonde...
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...Remarqu107). These soldiers didn’t have the freedom to manage anything about their lives not even the smallest thing; everything was planned for them by the elders. “Baumer is finally profoundly aware of the freedom he has lost” (Frida). These disappointed youths that were misled into believing that the war would glory, honor, and an act of patriotism were exposed to the truth of the war. It was the treachery of the older generation.
Ultimately, it is the disappointment that makes the world of the soldier difficult. It is difficult because it is unlike anything they imagined. What they imagined had been sickly twisted into a truth that was so painful that it gripped their very beings. It was the truth of betrayal; the betrayal of their mentors, their militia, and their people. In All Quiet on the Western Front, young innocents are ruthlessly betrayed on all fronts.
So said German World War I Veteran, Erich Maria Remarque, in his book All Quiet on The Western Front. War is an extremely complex and corrupt affair that many can’t even begin to comprehend. This juxtaposing quote perfectly depicts how Remarque’s detailed and personal novel allows the reader inside the mind of a soldier, giving unique insight on war. The novel follows the events narrator Paul Bäumer encounters whilst at war and shows Bäumer’s reflective thoughts on these events. This form of narration is a large part of what makes the book so effective. The book conveys many strong messages about war but the most prominent ones in the story line are:
The novel All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the poem, “In Flanders Field,” by John McCrae and the film, Gallipoli, Demonstrates how war makes men feel unimportant and, forces soldiers to make hard decisions that no one should half to make. In war people were forced to fight for their lives. Men were forced to kill one another to get their opinion across to the opposing sides. When men went home to their families they were too scared to say what had happened to them in the war. Many people had a glorified thought about how war is, Soldiers didn't tell them what had truly happened to them.
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 go 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 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. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
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.
Soldiers, using their instinct alone, must set aside their humanity to survive during their time on the battlefield. When Paul and his friends reach the battlefront, they find that they “become on the instant human animals” (56). Because of their desire to survive, they must surrender their morals and beliefs to their primal instinct. In this instance, they become savage beasts, making it easier to kill on the field. Their former selves effectively die in the war, becoming “insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill” (116). The war takes a toll on
War can destroy a young man mentally and physically. One might say that nothing good comes out of war, but in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, there is one positive characteristic: comradeship. Paul and his friends give Himmelstoss a beating in which he deserves due to his training tactics. This starts the brotherhood of this tiny group. As explosions and gunfire sound off a young recruit in his first battle is gun-shy and seeks reassurance in Paul's chest and arms, and Paul gently tells him that he will get used to it. The relationship between Paul and Kat is only found during war, in which nothing can break them apart. The comradeship between soldiers at war is what keeps them alive, that being the only good quality to come out of war.
The Young People of Today, a series of opinion polls conducted among young educated Frenchmen by Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde find romantic sentiments for war much like von Treitschke. The two authors interviewed a professor who tried to explain that there were in fact unjust wars, however, according to the professor, “the class obviously did not follow me; they rejected that distinction” (Massis and de Tarde 224). Massis and de Tarde go on to write about the many young men who left their high studies to pursue lives as soldiers because for them “it is not enough, for them to learn history: they are making it” (Massis and de Tarde 224).
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.
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.
When soldiers think about commoners after a traumatic experience, they often get frustrated that no one will ever understand their plight. Siegfried Sassoon portrays this in “Suicide in the Trenches” by showing anger at the happiness of other people. Saying “You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye / Who cheer when soldier lads march by, / Sneak home and pray you’ll never know / The hell where youth and laughter go.” (Sassoon 9-12), he effectively pours his unsolvable frustrations onto other people although they are not to blame. The men he is describing are people not only who don’t care, but never had the opportunity to care because they never thought about putting themselves in the same position as these soldiers. Remarque portrays the same message, but in a different tone as he brings it to a sad end because he has no energy to fuel any more anger. He is trying to reason with himself, but then thinks aloud “And men will not understand us-for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home…, and the war will be forgotten” (Remarque 294). The men who may be ‘remembered for their service’ will merely be remembered within their family as another human being, but not a person of strong willpower. Along with the soldier, the war itself will be forgotten
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.
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
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.