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All Quiet On The Western Front 'And Dulce Et Decorum'

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The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie. While the young men at the ages of eighteen to twenty signed up for the war they believed that they were going to have a well off time, meanwhile the older generation is betraying them. The men that came before them do not tell them they are going to see there best friend shot to pieces. Also that they are going to be stuck for days in tiny trenches running out of food because then they would get the bodies to …show more content…

Most soldiers have that epiphany when they know that they are okay because they have these men around them that are there to help and support them. These men that make it out with or without the men they came with leave with an understanding of the camaraderie that they did not have starting out. Paul has just killed a man and as a realization, “Camard I did not want to kill you... but you were only an idea to me before an abstraction... now for the first time, I see you are a man like me” (Remarque 223 ). He has gone through so much fighting this war and then to kill this man he finds that they are equal, they are just fighting for the same reasons. There was no real enemy just an idea of one. These men have just been gassed and are under attack “ Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time” (Owen 9-10). These men have to communicate fast in order to save lives, and if they do not have that togetherness they are going to lose the men that they desperately need. The camaraderie kicks in when they have to help put on one's another's mask even if they do not have theres on

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