Storm of Steel Reading Response Essay

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Storm of Steel provides a memoir of the savagery and periods of beauty that Ernst Jünger’s experienced while serving the German army during the First World War. Though the account does not take a clear stand, it lacks any embedded emotional effects or horrors of the Great War that left so few soldiers who survived unaffected. Jünger is very straightforward and does remorse over any of his recollections. The darkness of the hallucinations Jünger reports to have experienced provides subtle anti-war sentiment. However, in light of the descriptive adventures he sought during the brief moments of peace, the darkness seems to be rationalized as a sacrifice any soldier would make for duty and honor in a vain attempt for his nation’s victory. The overall lack of darkness and Jünger’s nonchalance about the brutality of war is enough to conclude that the account in Storm of Steel should be interpreted as a “pro” war novel; however, it should not be interpreted as “pro” violence or death. Jünger’s opening chapter recalls the enthusiastic first thoughts on entering the war, upon arrival in Champagne, “Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war .” Though the illusion was soon dispelled, throughout the novel Jünger did not seem to be phased by the reality of his mission. When Jünger described reaching Orainville, he wrote, “We saw only a few, ragged, shy civilians; everywhere eels soldiers in worn tattered tunics, with faces weather-beaten and often with a heavy growth of beard, strolling along at a slow pace, or standing in little clusters in doorways, watching our arrival with ribald remarks .” This is Jünger’s first of a pattern of acc... ... middle of paper ... ...tant to recognize this book is not “pro”- war for violence or killing, only “pro”-war in that this Great War had to be rationalized so that Jünger could survive. Jünger took pride in things that were appropriate for his time – the death of an enemy meant the potential survival of his Company and fighting alongside his brothers gave him a sense of fearlessness and purpose toward death. Jünger’s message seems to relate that it is sometimes necessary to fight in the name of family and to protect one’s nation. Jünger witnessed the brutality of the war and it shook him to a point of devastation (particularly after the Battle of Somme and toward the end), but he refused to allow it to overcome him and rejoiced in the short and simple moments of beauty in life. Works Cited Jünger, Ernst, and Michael Hofmann. Storm of Steel. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.

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