Dictionary.com states that war is a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations. War is cruel and unusual for any man. Majority of those who go to war do not come back as the same person you once knew. The somber distressing sights and feeling of a war can change a kind-hearted brave warrior into a desolated glum man. The two movies All Quite Western Front and A Razor’s Edge have shown me just how harsh war can be for soldiers. This essay will be discussing how the involvement of warfare reformed the characters Paul and Larry in their respected stories. Furthermore, how these experiences are indicatives of the Modernist period of British Literature.
In A Razor’s Edge, Larry goes through a metamorphosis. We are first introduced to an American named Larry Darrell who seems to be appreciating life before he is sent off to fight in World War I. The audience is introduced
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Paul is already in the war throughout the first couple of minutes but the film slowly gives information about his life before the war. Paul is seemly a creative kindhearted man. Paul is shown time and time again before the war writing poems, drawing pictures, and making promises to others. He seems to enjoy the life has before the war. Since being so young and inexperienced Paul isn’t really used to the cruel faiths of warfare like killing a man. He says, “I didn’t want to kill you, if you came at me like that, what would have you done?” (Mann, Western Front) He further finds everything about the man he killed by searching in his jacket. After he learns the dead enemy soldier’s name he the starts to ponder at what he really did. Paul’s journey during the war he sees his friends, commanders, and countless other of men die. The more and more Paul sees the more he loses his ability to mourn for his comrade’s
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.
... Paul wanted to get out of the war. Maybe Paul died on the right day; he loves quiet, and he dies on possibly the quietest day of the whole war. Maybe he just wanted to end his misery. In any case, Paul cannot accept the philosophy of war and thus gives himself up for death.
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.
Wisdom does not always relate to how many years we have lived but rather how much we have seen in this world. In All Quiet on the Western Front and They, both Erich Maria Remarque and Siegfried Sassoon created characters who were forever changed at a young age because of what they had seen. The horrors of trench warfare force men to do unimaginable things and become numb to their surroundings symbolizing the alienation of a generation.
Even when the novel begins, all Paul has known is death, horror, fear, distress, and despair. He describes the other soldiers in his company, including his German school mates with whom he enlisted after constant lecturing from their school master, Kantorek. The pressures of nationalism and bravery had forced even the most reluctant students to enlist. However weeks of essential training caused any appeal the military may have held for them to be lost. Corporal Himmelstoss, the boys’ instructor, callously victimizes them with constant bed remaking, sweeping snow, softening stiff boot leather and crawling through the mud. While this seems to be somewhat cruel treatment, it was in fact beneficial for the soldiers.
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
Paul and his company were once aspiring youth just graduating school thinking about having a wonderful life. Sometimes things don’t always play out the way you want. The effects of war on a soldier is another big theme in the novel. Paul describes how they have changed and how death doesn’t affect them anymore. “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defen...
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.
He realizes that he has to lose feeling to survive, “That I have looked far as the only possibility of existence after this annihilation of a human emotion” (194). Paul loses all feeling, which may be one of the main factors keeping him alive in battle, so that he does not allow himself to process the violence and horror to which he is exposed. Even in the short time where he thinks about all that he has lost, he is immediately overwhelmed with feelings and there is no time for this on the battlefront. Paul has no empathy for the enemy and kills without even thinking, “We have lost all feeling for one another.
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
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.
The story centers around a young soldier named Paul in some unnamed regiment in the German army. They fight the Allied forces of the United States of America and Europe, plus their friends. The story is about how Paul and the other soldiers with him, who are also his closest friends, deal with the many aspects of the war. They do this in the only way that they know how, and they are not always successful. Remarque deals with the characters' fears and thoughts by mixing them together into the story. You form a kind of bond with the various characters throughout the book. Although the author does not offer great detail on any one character, you still find yourself caring and hoping for each of them as they fight, love, hate, and in many cases, die. This is mainly through each of the character's personalities, which are so well-developed that you find yourself wondering if these were real people at some time or another and you might travel to Germany to meet them. The plot is not linear, and in most cases I would say that this is a negative thing. However, in the book the author actually uses it to enhance the storyline by not dwelling on any one scene for too long. Many chapters end and you find yourself wondering if there was supposed to be more. By the end, you realize that it actually enhances the plot greatly. One moment the people might be eating and bathing in the barracks, and the page after they are fighting on the front lines. It skips around a lot, but I became used to it. I may even grow to miss it in the future. This story's real strength lies somewhere else, though. This is in the portrayal of the characters' thoughts and feelings. Each character reacts to situations so realistically that many times I found myself thinking: "That's what I would have done!" This blends well with Remarque's many ventures into human nature throughout the book. He uses his characters to go into the depths of all of our souls, and he does it with skill. Especially well done was the part where Paul gets some leave of his duties and he goes back home to his family for a few weeks. While there, he realizes that he is no longer one of these people, that he is changed forever from what he has seen and what he has done.
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.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul is morphed from an innocent child into a war veteran who has a new look on society. Paul used to have a carefree life where he was able to be a kid, but when he enlisted into the army it all changed. Paul became a person whose beliefs were changed because of the war. Paul doesn't believe in society anymore especially parents, elders, and school, which used to play a big part in his life. He changed his beliefs because society does not really understand how bad war really is and pushed many young men, who were not ready, into the army. Paul connects with his fellow soldiers because they are going through the same situation and feel the same emotions. Paul's beliefs were changed by the lies that were told to him.
After entering the war in young adulthood, the soldiers lost their innocence. Paul’s generation is called the Lost Generation because they have lost their childhood while in the war. When Paul visits home on leave he realizes that he will never be the same person who enlisted in the army. His pre-war life contains a boy who is now dead to him. While home on leave Paul says “I used to live in this room before I was a soldier” (170).