People such as Erich Maria Remarque help people like me, someone who has not served acknowledge the brutal and breathtaking memories that he hasn’t lived but wants to learn about. In Erich Maria Remarque’s landmark war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, illustrates how war is hell on the soldiers who served in World War 1. The Novel, Paul Baumer, is a foot soldier fighting for the German Army; he shares a first-hand account of the wars atrocities on himself and his comrades in arms. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the author reveals the innocent yet destructive war experience between the main characters of the story. Paul and his relationship to the first industrialized world war between Germany and others through the use of a variety of literary elements including irony to emphasize the impact of war on young gentlemen as well as employing imagery or writing that appeals to readers senses to illustrate how war changes the boys into men of lost generation.
Erich Maria Remarque conceptualizes the morbid imagery of war in order to teach the readers how war is vile and putrid. While in war you can see the guts and gore from some of your friends, but some of the animals that are used in war. “The belly of the horse was ripped open and the guts trail out” (Remarque 63). During battle the warriors endured scary sights. War noises are scary and lingering in the mind. “The screaming of the beast becomes louder” (Remarque 63). When in battle you don’t know what you will face next. The forest was burnt down but the soldiers looked at the positive side and noticed it still smelled good. “They still smell of resin and pine” (Sobel). The soldiers sometimes used small things like these to make them more confident. Erich Maria Remarque uses imagery to show the readers how brutal war is.
Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front reveals the true feelings about the war and its effects on those warriors. Men while in the front lines when receiving fire get a different feeling and everyone reacts differently. “Men revert to animal instincts when under fire” (Remarque 131). This suggests when facing life or death people will do whatever it takes to live. Warriors during World
The style of writing of an author can tremendously impact the meaning and purpose of their pieces of literature. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author’s style of writing has an extensive impact on how readers perceive the story. Remarque was a soldier during World War I, providing him with first hand experience on the effects of war. These past experiences allow him bring the novel alive using his memories. Erich Maria Remarque’s style of writing has a colossal effect on the novel because of the level of detail he uses when describing scenes and moments of action.
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war
Since the beginning of mankind, war and the horrors that come with it have had devastating effects on both the minds and the bodies of human beings. Mentally, war drains soldiers of their ability to think properly. During a battle, soldiers witness bloody battles which frequently result in demise. Day after day of witnessing deceased fall to the ground, a soldier can do nothing but think about blood, gore, and his or her fallen comrades. Additionally, a war can be physically taxing on whomever takes part in it. Dodging or being hit by fists, swords, or bullets will inevitably cause pain and may disable somebody for the rest of their life. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque demonstrates through characterization, imagery,
In the month of January 1929, one of the greatest war novels of all time was written; All Quiet on the Western Front. This novel was written in Germany by a veteran of the brutal first World War, and was written in hope of communicating his message of how millions of fearless men lost everything in this demoralizing and treacherous war. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque uses juxtaposition and situational irony to promote the idea of how the adversities faced by the brave soldiers had a direct impact on their mental health and permanently affected their lives. Through the use of juxtaposition, Remarque argues on how the war was able to completely destroy the soldiers’ emotions and was later able to
In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.
The Great War, also known as World War I, is a defining moment in Europe’s history. Its aftermath consists of the demolition of Germany’s economy, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the loss of an entire generation of young men who were sent into combat. All Quiet on the Western Front chronicles the experiences of Paul Baumer, a 19-year old student who volunteers for the military during World War I along with his classmates Muller and Kropp. They are compelled to enlist by Kantorek, their fiercely patriotic but misguided schoolmaster. Paul’s life in the military is told in short entries that reveal the reality of war: horrifying battles, violence, alienation, emotional indifference. His accounts of war are personal and emotional, and the bleak tone
“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is a historical fiction that talks about Remarque’s experience in the Great War and how it dramatically changes his perspective of war as a patriotic duty. In the novel, the protagonist, Paul Baumer and his comrades are vulnerable to physical attacks at any given moment which installs fear amongst the group. With the death of many soldiers, long lasting battle and terrible conditions of the Great War, Baumer and his comrades have become disheartened.
During a violent war scene, Paul Baumer, describes what war has done to the men fighting in it. He explains that they “have become wild beasts”, only focused on doing whatever they had to, to hang onto life a little longer (Remarque, 113). Remarque utilizes a metaphor to make apparent that war has turned these men into animals, who worry only
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque progressively shows the brutality of war through the eyes of soldiers claiming their innocence, and also the effects of war on the people in the home front . In this essay I will be discussing the effect of war on both the combatants and non combatants in this novel.
The act of war is something that should not be done for obvious reasons. Yet for centuries mankind has fought over everything and anything. Often it is idolized and great war stories are told throughout the ages, yet the Story All quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque takes a different view. He looks closely at the extreme physical and mental stress it had on the soldiers. Although the story revolves around one german soldier, many on both sides experienced very similar conditions and psychological stress. Because of such profound information, at the original release of the book, the Nazi officials banned the book to prevent their propaganda from being distorted with the truth. All quiet on the Western Front not only shed truth into the lives of civilians, it educated the civilians with the physical and mental stress war had on human beings.
Through the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, novelist Erich Maria Remarque provides a commentary on the dehumanizing tendencies of warfare. Remarque continuously references the soldiers at war losing all sense of humanity. The soldiers enter the war levelheaded, but upon reaching the front, their mentality changes drastically: “[they] march up, moody or good tempered soldiers – [they] reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals” (Remarque 56). This animal instinct is essential to their survival. When in warfare, the soldiers’ minds must adapt to the environment and begin to think of the enemy as objects rather than human beings. It is this defensive mechanism that allows the soldiers to save
Erich Remarque’s 1929 novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, serves as a times capsule of the Great War. Throughout his novel, Remarque explores the horror of WWI, portraying the animal qualities it possesses. Going deeper he examines the effects the war had on soldiers lives and mindsets. Furthermore, the politics that go into war and the disconnect between those who start it and those who fight it, is discussed.
The young soldiers depicted in Erich Maria Remarque's text All Quiet on the Western Front represent a generation without precedent, constancy, or forethought. The men, answering their elders' calls to become national heroes, have lost their innocence on the battlefield and remain forever altered in belief and spirit. Remarque contrasts the cold realities of war in the present to the tranquility of the past in order to illustrate the psychological transformation of the men stationed on the frontlines. The soldiers appear trapped in the present and alienated from their pasts; however, deconstruction of the text rejects the present and past as opposing states of
“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque opens the book portraying young men eager and thrilled for the experience they have ahead of joining the war. As their battle for survival becomes more serious they learn that they must detach from their feelings and emotions in order to survive turning into harsh and cruel human beings. Remarque slowly characterizes the men as animals as a way to show the lose of self and humility because of war. Ironically, during these hard times the suffering of animals bring out the emotions in the soldiers. Remarque is going to gradually display how Paul Baumer and the soldiers on the front transform from enthusiastic youths to human animals.
Being in the war himself, Remarque has encountered the abhorrences of it firsthand. He has seen individuals bite the dust and the battering that his kindred companions and fighters took to the point he developed PTSD. In his novel, he was attempting to pass on his musings on war to the subjects of Germany and in the end America and different nations. This is a hostile to war novel which depicted the cruelty of the war in courses, for example, themes, images and the immaculate fierceness that has been depicted in the novel.