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All Quiet On The Western Front Essay examples

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Essay: All Quiet on the Western Front An anti-war novel often portrays many of the bad aspects and consequences of war. Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel set in the First World War that is against war. Remarque describes the terrible reality of the war, focusing on the horrors and involved. The novel portrays an anti-war perspective as it brings up issues about the brutality of war, the narrator’s change of attitude towards war, the futility of war and the deaths of the narrator’s friends. In the novel, Remarque presents the brutality of war. Early on in the novel, he describes the sound of the wounded horses and how brutal the war atmosphere is. “There is a whole world …show more content…

He says, “We were eighteen years old, and we had just begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight to our hearts…We don’t believe in those things anymore; we believe in the war'; (p63). Later he also says, “We have been consumed in the fires of reality, we perceive differences only in the way tradesmen do, and we see necessities like butchers. We are free of care no longer- we are terrifyingly indifferent'; (p88). He continues to realise his change even more. He says, “I suppose I am the one who has changed in the meantime. A great gulf has opened up between then and now. I didn’t know then what the war was really like-…Now I can see I have become more brittle without realising it'; (p120). Baumer describes his change as like turning into an animal. He reflects, “We have turned into dangerous animals. We are not fighting, we are defending ourselves from annihilation'; (p81). The narrator’s attitude change also affects his feeling for his mates. He says, “We have lost all feelings for others, we barely recognise each other when somebody else comes into our line of vision, agitated as we are'; (p83). All Quiet on the Western Front also portrays the complete futility of war. Kropp describes a seemingly silly way of fighting a war. He thinks that it should be done by the ministers and

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