Creative Writing: All Quiet On The Home Front

Paul Bäumer is a German, young boy, who, together with his classmates, enlists for the army to fight in the Great War. Full of enthusiasm and adventurous thoughts, they arrive at the front, but then are faced with the horrific and soul-destroying war. One by one the classmates are fall in action…

As men arrive at the training camps, the boys are more excited than ever and even make joked about killing the enemy. Their commander, Kemmerich, who used to be the local mailman, works hard to get the boys in shape and tries to tire them out. The boys slowly realize how war changes people even Kemmerich who had been a fun loving man who loved joking with the boys. They got a small tast of the realities of war but yet that still doesn’t shake the pride and excitement from their eyes for they are just getting started on their big adventure.

Throughout time, war has changed a person in both physical and emotional ways. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque strived to write about the true realities of war which contradicted the common, romantic belief about war. This novel captures and shifts the audience into a world so different than their home and allows them to almost experience war first-hand. All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a normal teenager named Paul Baumer who went from a typical school in Germany, to the front lines of World War 1. As we read the story, we could feel the many changes that Paul experienced, from just arriving at the front, all the way until his death. Two of many horrific changes that Paul experienced are the

The boy imagines the ongoing battle mostly as a fun interest, until suddenly, “His little world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing building as his own home!” (3-4). At this point, the child realizes what has happened, but it is not over yet, “There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman” (4). At this point, the boy inherits a full understanding of what war really is.

It is obvious from the opening chapter that this novel will center on the war and the effects it has on a young group of soldiers, none of them more than twenty years of age. They are all friends and former classmates of Paul Baumer, the narrator and protagonist of the book; they have enlisted in the German infantry because their teacher, Kantorek, had painted for them a glorious picture of fighting and saving the homeland from destruction during World War I. In this first chapter, Baumer and his friends are away from the front lines, relaxing a bit after two weeks of fierce fighting. As each of the young men is introduced, it is apparent that they are tired, hungry, angry, and disillusioned over the war.

Hello, this is Kelsey Maley reporting from a battlefield in France during spring of 1914. As you can most likely hear, the battle is booming behind us. The gunshots and cannon fires can be heard from miles away. From where I am standing one can also hear the cries and screams, and running horse hooves from the war below. Looking down we can see the khaki and grey uniforms either riding horses or hiding in trenches and with guns or swords. It is hard to concentrate on these men in uniforms because of the dirt and smoke covering the air around them. Walking up here is difficult because of the bumps in the ground. One may be able to feel the rumbling and shaking ground every time a cannon is fired. Each side is obeying the screams from their comandor

War is a life changing experience. In the novel All Quiet On The Western Front it presents itself many a time as a change for the worse. Not only do these soldiers lose friends, brothers in arms, they also lose their innocence. In the novel, the main protagonist Paul and his good buddies from school are barely nineteen years of age when they join the war. They aren’t soldiers they are only boys. They soon learn that fighting this war is demanding not only physically, but mentally, and emotionally too.

After abandoning the camp we stumbled across the country side and found a house. As we sit by the wall, we think about our fellow soldiers now in heaven. I look up to the sky to see shepherds delight or more like the resemblance of the blood of the abandoned. Why everyone was quiet, I don’t know. There probably just tired from the great determination. Many of us seeking an end but will be disappointed and become depressed. Trepidation of death has occurred in several of us.

You have successfully entered enemy territory. You and the other recon soldiers have crossed the distance of open plain, skirted the barbed wire, and are close to the enemy trenches. You all lie on your stomachs in the mud, rifles in hand. So far, the going is good. You don’t seem to have been spotted, and no shouts of alarm split the air.

By March 1915 the influx of refugees from Belgium was almost at an end and Epworth played host to a social reunion consisting of games, dancing, and songs to bring together all those who had been housed in the Isle. Part of the entertainment featured songs from Mrs. W. Hirst and Mrs. R. Stephenson and a pianoforte solo by Mrs. Breeze. The month saw farmers becoming increasingly rueful; the fine weather created ideal growing conditions but a shortage of men and horse hampered progress. Indeed, there was concern that horses in the Isle were being ‘worked to death in order to make up for the lack of numbers.’ Members of the Belton VTC celebrated the opening of their new rifle range where Mr. G. H. Newborn exhorted them to use it well to learn

The story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is an enormously detailed fictional account of a wartime scenario in which jimmy Cross (the story’s main character) grows as a person, and the emotional and physical baggage of wartime are brought to light. The most obvious and prominent feature of O’Brien’s writing is a repetition of detail. O’brien also passively analyzes the effects of wartime on the underdeveloped psyche by giving the reader close up insight into common tribulations of war, but not in a necessarily expositorial sense.. He takes us into the minds of mere kids as they cope with the unbelievable and under-talked-about effects or rationalizing

At some point, their ears had finally given in to the echoing shots and yells and had dulled to the point where they could barely hear anything at all. The students - cut, bruised and bloodied - lay upon the ground. Dead or hiding. Hoping for mercy, for that’s all they had left to hope for.

POV OF SOLDIER 1: My eardrums almost burst as the sound of rockets soaring through the air and colliding with the walls of our camp filled the air. Next to me the radio began screeching “GET UP WE’RE UNDER ATTACK GET TO THE ARSENAL, GATHER YOUR WEAPONS”. I shot straight up out of my seat and darted to the tent where all our weapons and artillery were held. A collection of thundering voices arose as more gunfire came down on our campgrounds. “Get to the weapons, get out of the gunfire,” the Colonel could be heard repeatedly screaming at the top of his lungs.

I write to you today from a hospital bed in France. I know that may sound bad, but truly I am one of the lucky ones. I have lost so many friends in this past battle. I am sure you have probably heard news of this back home in England already. The first day of the battle on the Somme was a dark day indeed. I have heard it word here that it could have been one of the bloodiest battles to date. I do not even know how to begin describing the war, but I have to describe it to someone. I would never want to tell my parents of these horrors I am facing; it would be far too much for them to bear. You are my closest friend back home, and I know if it were not for your health issues, you would be here fighting too, so I feel I can tell you about all this. I know I volunteered for this, but I never in a million years could have predicted what war would truly be like. Looking back on it though, we are truly lucky that Britain is a country that relies on volunteer

It was the day before it all happened, everyone knew that people were coming to fight and take all the men, in the refugee to go fight against us, we didn’t know what to do with my father. Once my father came back home we were so sad because we didn’t want our dad to leave us, so we were planning to hide my father, Aunt Betsy was telling us kids to go in the room because, my parents had to talk. So me (Sally) and my little 5 year old brother. My little brother (Michael) all he talked about was being a warrior which I didn’t like because, we were going to be a in a war, but I didn't mind because I knew he was little and really didn’t know what he wanted to be.