It was awful and bitter when the Allies and the Central Powers clashed and unleashed their military power at the war front in World War I. World War I also known as the “war to all end wars, or the Great War occurred between June 28, 1914, to November 11, 1918. The war left over thirty-eight million civilians and militaries casualties. Much work was needed to get the European countries back together after the war. In the book Fear written by Gabriel Chevallier, the narrator shows the unforgettable memories a war can bring. The main character Jean Dartemont is supposed to be enthusiastic to go to war like many other young nineteen-year-old French men at the time. Nationalism is high in France and there are many military posters promoting …show more content…
He takes a time throughout to book to look at his reason why he went off to war. The physical scars that Jean left with during the war were clearly seen in these accounts. Emotionally the soldiers went off to work feeling unbeatable with a strong nationalistic pride. However, they soon realized that all their emotions would not be able to conqueror the evils the war had to offer. One of the most horrific memories for Jean was when he spoke about the different type of corpse he saw while they were on their way to another town. They had crouched down on their knees under a pile of debris. When they got up they saw a decapitated head of a soldier who probably died days ago. Jean is shaken up by this horrific site by saying that when he looked at the man’s face he could fell like the man was blaming him for his death. He reminisces on all the horrific events emotionally that left him scarred, however, he goes on to say that this was the “most horrible impression” that he could take away from the war front. Jean later goes on to describe the agony and numerous positions where the corpse would lay. Personally, as the reader, I could really fell the suffering of the dying soldiers when Jean describes the “glass eyes and twisted mouths” of the dead bodies in the trench”. This evidence took a toll on Jean because he leaves the scene in disgust and without hope of a return home. Lastly, the war
Most significantly, the isolation of the characters forms the grim mood. The noseless soldier is a misfit among the three other soldiers. He wears a “black silk handkerchief” on his face, because he does not have a nose (455). His separation from the other soldiers suggests a sorrowful mood. The narrator feels isolated from the other soldiers, because he thinks that he is not the heroic type. He believes that his being wounded is an accident (455). He also does not see himself as a “hawk”
Do you know anyone who has been in a world war? Do you know what happens to people in war? The novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque is the story of the German man Paul and how he copes with the war and how he gets through it. World War 1 was an international conflict which lasted from 1914 to 1918. War transforms people in many ways and nobody except those who have experienced it can understand the terrors. War can change whole societies, how people live in it, and how it runs. Many people go into war thinking that it will be very adventurous and fun because that's what they see in advertisement and propaganda. The reality of war is that it is brutal and you have to kill people to survive and every day you survive is
The text, The Things They Carried', is an excellent example which reveals how individuals are changed for the worse through their first hand experience of war. Following the lives of the men both during and after the war in a series of short stories, the impact of the war is accurately portrayed, and provides a rare insight into the guilt stricken minds of soldiers. The Things They Carried' shows the impact of the war in its many forms: the suicide of an ex-soldier upon his return home; the lessening sanity of a medic as the constant death surrounds him; the trauma and guilt of all the soldiers after seeing their friends die, and feeling as if they could have saved them; and the deaths of the soldiers, the most negative impact a war
WW1 also known as “The Great War” was a brutal war that wreaked havoc upon europe.
The returning of a dramatic event disables a soldier to adapt accordingly to everyday life. Ones conscious of reality is infringed upon Posttraumatic experiences of warfare, which unleashes an outbreak of inhumane actions directed towards existence and significant others. As the short story progresses after the event of the Vietnam War, the narrator says referring to Henry that:
The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.
The French soldier dies an agonizingly painful and prolonged death; his gurgling and whimpering haunting Paul, but when the soldier finally dies, the resulting silence is even more haunting and debilitating. “Paul describes the trenches, the shelling, the screams of wounded horses and men, the poison gas attack, and the rain that drenches everything. [He] describes the tension and the horror of a major battle, with the confusion, the noise, and death turning the soldiers into numbed, unthinking machines.” (All). Paul recognizes how war forces people to think and act in ways that differ from their values and beliefs, as they are desperate to survive. Remarque uses imagery and sensory details to skillfully formulate a raw and grisly atmosphere that leaves no aspect hidden. Towards the end of the novel, many of Paul’s comrades have died, and he is the only person left in his class who is alive. He expresses the desolation and misery he feels, “I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.” (Remarque 295). Paul has nothing left to lose at this point, so he faces his enemies free of fear and obligation to return back to his friends and his home. His sorrowful tone conveys his indifference towards death and his desire
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.
Gabriel Chevallier’s autobiographical novel Fear: A Novel of World War I started with a young university student Jean Dartemont, like many others around his age getting drafted into the French army to fight at the front. Dartemont was pleased to know that he met the qualifications to join the army but would soon learn that the war was nothing to be proud of.
To start of the novel Fear, by Gabriel Chevallier, Jean Dartemont is in France observing all the civilians celebrate the start of the new war. He criticizes their behavior and strongly disapproves, however, he admits a curiosity in him that convinces him to volunteer for the war for it will be a ‘remarkable spectacle.” After being approved to go to war, Dartemont heads to a training camp. There he becomes a private after failing to become an officer. Here he commands a group, but realized he finds the maintenance of soldiers to be tedious and useless work. Already he becomes quite eager to arrive at the front lines, which soon happens.
The reader will get an increasingly detailed image of how the soldiers emotionally respond to the happenings throughout the war due to this composition.
The horrors of war were depicted by the constant threats to the characters lives, the brutal conditions of the bad weather, hunger and combat. Soldiers had to battle the enemy along with nature. Soldiers would become stressed, paranoid and start losing their personalities. As Captain Miller says, “I just know that every man I kill, the farther away from home I feel.” This quote shows the mental toll on these soldiers.
World War I had a more profound effect on society than wars prior. With new deadly weapons, like poison gas, high death tolls, and the first occurrence of total war, shocked the world, tearing people between the modern and the tradition. Traditional society was torn down by the destruction of the war. As with most literary movements, writers reflect the world
World War I (1914-1918) was a war that changed world history forever. The technological, industrial, social and political advances that took place at beginning of the 20th century paved the way for today 's world. And the parties involved in World War I used those advances to create one of the first modern wars. For those reasons World War I is referred to as many things including, an industrial war, a war of attrition, and as a total war. These aspects is what makes the war so revolutionary and groundbreaking and equally as devastating. A novel that helps illustrate each of these categories is All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), by Erich Maria Remarque. The author tells a German soldiers experiences through the war. The book does not
The wartime lives of the soldiers who fought in the war were in a state of mind of mixed feelings. Happiness and devastating are two adjectives that can describe the soldier’s feelings in the war because at one second they can be happy that they succeeded on a mission, but on the other hand, it can be very devastating because one of their own soldiers could have been killed during the war. Aside from physical danger losing one of your own soldiers or having your family worry about you every day and night are some negatives and unpleasant parts about fighting in a war. For example, soldiers loved ones worried each day, and hoped that they would not get a knock on their door by someone who was going to tell them that their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers have died in the war.