Effects of War Exposed in All Quite on the Western Front, Bury the Dead, and Paths of Glory

Effects of War Exposed in All Quite on the Western Front, Bury the Dead, and Paths of Glory

"From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war." Margot Asquith revealed her discontent with war in this quote. War is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as a concerted effort or campaign to combat or put an end to something considered injurious. A rather contradicting definition from the dictionary when one examines war's true meaning and the effect it has on mankind. Wars do not put an end to something considered injurious, war starts them. War stems from human greed and ignorance and is often used as a tool by men to seek fame and glory. People remember the glory of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Napoleon but forget the number of deaths caused by these so-called heroes. War is about death and the destruction of the human character and spirit. World War I, not only claimed millions of lives, but left deep scars in the memories of those who survived. Disillusioned and disheartened, these young people became known as the Lost Generation. Even though the cost of war was staggering, its psychological effects had no boundary. The soldier's greatest struggle during war is not physical, but mental and spiritual.

A war novel that gives its reader an insight into the lives of soldiers during WWI, All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is considered the greatest war novel of all time. This book brings its readers into the personal life of Paul Baumer and the horrors he had to encounter as a young German s...

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...think about themselves, about religion, and about war. Sometimes, when a soldier gets too caught up in the war, he tries to hide his true feelings even though he is facing the biggest battle of all: with himself.

Works Cited:

Cobb, Humphrey. Paths of Glory, a Novel, Viking Press, New York 1935,

new edition, Dell 1957, William Heinemann Ltd, London.

Hynes, Samuel. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, London: Bodley Head, 1991.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984.

Shaw, Irwin. Bury the Dead. New Theatre & Film, 1934-1937. Ed. Herbert Kline. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanich, c1985.

Stephen E. Tabachnick, "Afterword," to Humphrey Cobb, Paths of Glory (1935) (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), pp. 267-304.