Descriptive Essay: All Quiet On The Western Front

240 Words1 Page

Mother I’m telling you it’s horrible over here, I can’t stand this! We barely have shelter, food, clothes to wear, always getting bitten by bugs, and we don’t even have beds to sleep on. I have to literally sleep on the ground, pretending the dirt was my mattress. Trust me it was not comfortable! I had blood splashed all over me. This war got out of control and it became a “terrain of death”, and there was so many dead bodies that stretched 500 miles! The worst part was that the warfare in the trenches was that it was so dirty, smelly and people who have contagious diseases such as cholera and trench foot. For soldiers life in the trenches meant living in fear. Furthermore, there is an open space between two sets of opposing trenches became

Show More
Related

  • All Quiet on the Western Front Essays: Catalyst for Change

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    1386 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front: Themes

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    use nature as the judge to condemn war, along with shocking imagery, so that his

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front Essays: Can’t Go Home Again

    579 Words  | 2 Pages

    During his leave, perhaps Baumer’s most striking realization of the vacuity of words in his former society occurs when he is alone in his old room in his parents’ house. After being unsuccessful in feeling a part of his old society by speaking with his mother and his father and his father’s friends, Baumer attempts to reaffiliate with his past by once again becoming a resident of the place. Here, among his mementos, the pictures and postcards on the wall, the familiar and comfortable brown leather sofa, Baumer waits for something that will allow him to feel a part of his pre-enlistment world. It is his old schoolbooks that symbolize that older, more contemplative, less military world and which Baumer hopes will bring him back to his younger innocent ways.

    Read More

  • Free Essays - All Quiet on the Western Front

    1335 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul Bäumer, the narrator and protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front, is a character who develops extensively within the course of the novel. As a young man, he is persuaded to join the German Army during World War I. This three year ordeal is marked by Paul's short, but tragic trek into adulthood as he learns to cope with the trials and tribulations of war. In the wake of a struggle which claims millions, Paul loses his precious innocence as he is further isolated from society and engulfed by bloodshed. Paul's evolution throughout the novel is a result of his having to adapt in order to survive.

    Read More

  • TRENCH WARFARE

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    In my opinion the trenches were terrible in most case, from the awful stench and the infestation of rats to the lice and shell shock; the front line trenches were unforgiving, brutal and cruel. In opposition, not everything was terrible, the trenches were for many, the first time many soldiers had the chance to have a three course meal, and they could rest and make letters. However these sources are limited by the fact that it focuses on only one aspect of the First World War and hence leave out the full picture. Overall, the sources are reliable and as such help me to understand the conditions of the trenches through the experiences of the soldiers of the First World War.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1065 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the book, All Quiet On The Western Front, the character Corporal Himmelstoss is portrayed as a disciplinary, brutal, and sympathetic type of person in the training camps. Although prior to his position as a trainer he was a postman. Corporal Himmelstoss is in charge of No. 9 platoon. His petite size and the sleek moustache is not intimidating at first, until he displays his strict side towards the young soldiers. The brutal strictness of discipline that the corporal is known for changes once he has a taste of the frontlines. Thereafter a new soft tender person is born in the need for companionship.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Literary Analysis Essay

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    War can be a devastating part of life as it has the ability to cause a large amount of pain in people. Being in a frightful battle himself, Erich Maria Remarque was influenced by being in WWI first hand; thus truly capturing the barbarity of such a conflict in his novels. Going through life, he experienced being exiled from Germany, went through the stages of grief, and changed as a human being during the war. After living through multiple battles, WWII occurred and the third reich took away his citizenship from Germany, beheading his sister as well due to the writings he published. Throughout Erich Maria Remarque’s life, he experienced various tragic events in WWI, inspiring the many award-winning writings he published.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    1132 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul Baumer is the protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque. Paul changes his values throughout the novel as a result of having to adapt in order to survive. As Baumer struggles to survive the war, he transforms as shown by his thoughts, actions, and the conversations that he contributes in.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story of several schoolmates who symbolize a generation destroyed by the dehumanisation of the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front tells of the men who died, and the tragically changed lives of those who survived. Remarque follows the story of Paul Bäumer, a young infantryman, from his last days of school to his death three years later. Whereas the journey motif is typically used to portray a positive character development, that of Paul is deliberately the opposite. In what has been dubbed the greatest antiwar novel of all time, Remarque depicts the way in which Paul is snatched away from humanity by the brutality of war. However while Paul and his comrades become separated from society, and begin to rely on their basic survival instincts, in their own surroundings they still show humane qualities such as compassion, camaraderie, support and remorse. Paul’s transformation from human to soldier begins in training camp, and is reinforced by the trauma at the front. His return home further alienates him from society, and Paul begins to feel safe at the front with his friends. Nonetheless throughout the novel suffering and mortality bare Paul’s true side, and he momentarily regains his former self. Bäumer, the German word for tree, is an early indication that Paul must remain firmly rooted in reality to survive the brutality of war.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1686 Words  | 4 Pages

    "This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war."

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Literary Analysis

    2408 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Critical Analysis

    1407 Words  | 3 Pages

    While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.

    Read More

More about Descriptive Essay: All Quiet On The Western Front

Open Document