Creative Writing: All Quiet On The Western Front

Men were living outside for days or weeks on end, with limited shelter from cold, wind, rain and snow in the winter or from the heat and sun in summer. Artillery destroyed the familiar landscape, reducing trees and buildings to desolate rubble and churning up endless mud in some areas. The incredible noise of artillery and machine gun fire, both enemy and friendly, was often incessant. Yet soldiers spent a great deal of time waiting around, and in some quiet sectors there was little real fighting and a kind of informal truce could develop between the two sides. Even in more active parts of the front, battle was rarely continuous and boredom was common among troops, with little of the heroism and excitement many had imagined before the war. The Italian infantry officer Emilio Lussu wrote that life in the trenches was ‘grim and monotonous’ and that ‘if there were no attacks, there was no war, only hard work’.[1] The order to attack – or news of an enemy assault – changed

“The thunder of the guns swells to a single heavy roar and then breaks up again into separate explosions. The dry bursts of the machine-guns rattle. Above us the air teems with invisible swift movement, with howls, pipings, and hisses.

The sound thundered through my ears. The ground shook beneath my feet and it felt like I was floating on it. Then another flash like lightning and that ground-shaking, deafening noise again” As you can probably tell, this is where the village is being bombed.

Has there really ever been a time in your life when everything has been all quiet? No matter who you are, there is always something on your mind, or something that you have to deal with. There is really only one way to achieve absolute quiet, and that is by death. War unfortunately gives millions of people just that. All Quiet on the Western Front is a book that tells a story of young men and their journey throughout WW1 from the German perspective. Three main points of war that will be mentioned in this paper are betrayal, horror, and friendship.

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,

combatants, they then realized that they were standing in the middle of multiple bunkers as they

people had to finish the work of the lifeless soldiers. "The world will little note, nor long

As Tim O’Brien states in his short story book, The Things They Carried, the only true thing about war is its allegiance to evil and obscenity. One example of this faithfulness war has to stick to its truth is the inevitable death of many soldiers. War consumes. It consumes a large amount of resources, money, energy, time, but most of all it consumes human lives. The ones who don’t pass must bear the witness of the death of the others. “In the Field”, one of the short stories in O’Brien’s book, explores the way death is handled by soldiers and the process by which absorb the emotions that come along with it.

Some of the bullets managed to hit some of the barrels which caused a chain reaction of explosions. Soldiers everywhere were returning fire while other gasping for help. Fletcher scanned around the room for Marcel. He saw him lying behind a brick wall as cover. He seemed to be severely injured as his hand, tainted with blood, covered of what seemed to be several bullet holes. Fletcher couldn’t believe what was happening. There were soldiers lying lifeless here and there. It was complete chaos. Fletcher knew he had been fooled. He knew that secretly there was no prize. He knew that he had to

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war” (Remarque Prologue). All Quiet on the Western Front recounts the tale of six German warriors who volunteered to battle in World War I, and it reports their hardships mentally, religiously, and physically. The novel is told from the point of view of one staggeringly perceptive youthful warrior, Paul Bäumer, who uncovered subtle elements of life on the Western Front. Creator Erich Maria Remarque himself had battled on the Western Front when he was eighteen years of age, and he endured a few wounds. The repulsions of what he saw as an officer stayed with him.

(73) While in the bush the soldiers are confronted with not only the enemy but the enemy of their mind. They start to hear sounds that are not even there. The dead silence triggers sound in their heard. This can make many soldiers crazy. The reality of the sounds is not really there but the soldiers make the sounds and

We all sleep and rest and eat in the trenches, but it’s not paradise. One night, the sound of loud booms woke us up. We were being attacked by some very dangerous artillery. We could feel every boom and every crack in the dirt above us. Many soldiers were not prepared for this and got sick. The attack come out of nowhere and frightened all of us.

An explosion rocked the town, widows shattered and cars alarms wailed, A line of twenty Abram tanks rolled side by side on parallel roads, through the town of Mesa Grande, but, all heading the same direction, to the west. Boom, boom , boom-boom, as the Abrams fired their 120mm M256 smoothbore guns in a hellish symphony toward their targets, the Heat rounds strike time and again on target, plumes of fire, smoke, and sand leapt in the sky, forming craters across the desert to the west of town.

The boom of artillery fire and the crack of lead bullets being propelled at lethal velocities out of the smooth barrels seventy-five yards away thundered over the sweet sound of Union drums, while the gun smoke obscured the view of salvation; the glorious Union flag. Roger Cutler, alongside his artillery division, was experiencing shell-shock, stunned by the barrage of enemy fire. He laid there, amidst the utter cacophony and violence, fading in and out of consciousness.

In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque; Erich illustrates the brutal conditions on the front lines. Effects of war in the novel change the purpose these men have in life; their survival is priority, living with that mindset for years causes lots of social barriers and inhumane mindsets. For example the narrator states, “We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and kill” (116 ), showing how the soldiers see the cruelty at the front, yet feel helpless in stoping it as they are the problem. Most soldiers chose to fight blindly, wondering later, why were they fighting to begin with. Remarque portrayed the fear and distrust the soldiers had in the war throughout the