Kemmerich's All Quiet On The Western Front

An ancient Chinese proverb states “One cannot know peace without knowing war” (Herzberg). In a time where all that plagues many nations was war, it was inevitable that a time of peace needed to follow or at least the sober idea of it. The proverb was created to validate wars and later turned into a way to approach life’s troubles. Being within an individual or on a global scale, war and peace are connected. They exist coherently but never together; they are the cause and effects of each other. One follows the other yet both are needed in order to understand the other one. This relationship between war and peace is developed in the Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. While the first major world war is the background

The novel, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque describes the grim reality of WWI. The poem, The Target by Ivor Gurney also talks about the war, and the thoughts a soldier has after killing his enemy. Both works of literature share many similarities.

Paul is given seventeen days of leave in which he visits his family. When he returns home, he feels out of place and is not comfortable sharing his awful combat experiences with others. His mother is sick and dying of cancer as his father is struggling to pay for her care. Paul also finds out that Kantorek, his teacher from school, was forced to become a German soldier. This pleases Paul because Kantorek now has to actually experience the tragic events of the war firsthand like the

In war, both violence and fear revokes a soldier’s humanity. These elements of war cause a person to shut down their emotional instincts, which causes the soldiers to mature rapidly by taking innocence along with joy and happiness in life. Through the experiences that the soldiers encounter, their humanity is compromised. Thus, as war strips soldiers of their innocence, they start to become disconnected from themselves and others. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the negative effects war has on a soldier’s humanity, through his use of Paul’s books and the potato pancakes by revealing the soldiers loss of emotion that causes them to become detached from society. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. Likewise the potato pancakes reveal Paul’s emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.

All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque is a narrative describing World War I from a German soldier 's perspective. The story is narrated by Paul Baümer and predominantly revolves around the experiences of him and his comrades Kemmerich, Katczinsky, Kropp, Müller, and Leer. The novel begins with Paul Baümer and his friends in a cheerful mood as extra rations are being allocated to them due to the missing soldiers. During this event, Baümer introduces and describes the various personalities of his friends and his connection to them. Eventually, Baümer reflects back to the time how he and his friends had been coaxed into joining the war by their, patriotic school teacher, Kantorek only to later find out that they 've been lied to and the war isn 't even comparable to of what they 've been told. Instead, Paul Baümer and his school friends find themselves entrenched in the middle of bloody and what appears to be a pointless war.

“We developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity which grew on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced - comradeship in arms” (Remarque 19). In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front the men are faced at the decision of life and death, protecting each other so each individual will make it home. Facing horrific images while being put at risk on the line in the front. Comradeship plays an important role in All Quiet on the Western Front, by being able to survive, build a brotherhood bond, and restoring comfort and courage.

There is no doubt that when war occurs, every single human being is affected by it even if it is just a little. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of teenage men, who also appear to by classmates, are in the German army of World War I because they have chosen to leave their adolescence at home and school for grown up work at the army. Throughout this fictional novel, they face many challenges that result in them not seeing each other ever again because of death. War affects individuals by leaving behind necessities such as education or jobs, not being able to watch over others such as their health, and injuries that soldiers receive while they are at war.

Written by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front is the tale of a young man by the name of Paul. Paul who is nineteen years old gathers several of his friends from school and together they voluntarily join the army fighting for the Axis alliance. Before they are sent off into actual battle, they are faced with the brutal training camp. Along with this they face the cruelty of the life of a soldier. This made them question the reason for which a soldier fights. They are told that they fight because they must be nationalists and must therefore be patriotic. But they began to understand that these are just clichés and are used to brainwash soldiers. Soon after they graduate they are sent into the fray of war. The premature idea of war being glorious and honourable is destroyed when they step into the gruesome actuality of war. They are forced to live in constant fear for their life. Kemmerich, a friend of Paul, gets injured and contracts gangrene. From this his leg is amputated to stop the infection from spreading. Sadly, the operation was done too late and Kemmerich is declared to be slowly dying. Paul and his friend visit Kemmerich is slowly dying, and Müller, another former classmate, overlooks Kemmerich’s horrible state and says that he wants Kemmerich’s boots for himself. Accustomed to life at war, Paul doesn’t consider Müller insensitive. Paul understands that Muller knows Kemmerich will no longer use his boots

Paul thinks, “Wearily I stand up and look out of the window. Then I take one of the books, intending to read, and turn over the leaves. But I put it away and take out another. There are passages in it that have been marked. I look, turn over the pages, take up freshbooks. Already they are piled up beside me. Speedily more join the heap, papers, magazines, letters. I stand there dumb. As before a judge. Dejected. Words, Words, Words--they do not reach me. Slowly I place the books back in the shelves. Nevermore” (173). Remarque places emphasis on the inhumanity and loss of innocence of the men and how minute their lives were. Franz Kemmerich, one of the many men whose life is sacrificed for his country, has a pair of boot that everyone covets, Muller is one of them. When Muller asks Kemmerich for the boots Paul is astonished at his brazenness he regards the situation as such, “Though Müller would be delighted to have Kemmerich's boots, he is really quite as sympathetic as another who could not bear to think of such a thing for grief. He merely sees things clearly. Were Kemmerich able

War is always the worst tragedy of mankind in the world. We, as human beings, were experienced two most dolorous wars that were ever happened in our history: World War I and World War II. A young generation actually does not know how much hardship the predecessors, who joined and passed through the wars, undergo. We were taught about just how many people died in the wars, how much damage two participations in the wars suffered or just the general information about the wars. We absolutely do not know about the details, and that’s why we also do not know what the grief-stricken feeling of people joining in the wars really is. But we can somewhat understand that feeling through war novels, which describe the truthfulness of the soldiers’ lives, thoughts, feelings and experiences. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, which takes World War I as background, is the great war novel which talks about the German soldiers ' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the hopeless of these soldiers about the “future” – the time the war would have ended.

As Paul’s story progresses, one by one, he watches all of his friends die. The friendly farmer Detering is driven mad by homesickness and is caught as a deserter and convicted by marshal court. Muller is fatally shot in the stomach during a battle and dies a slow and painful death. He gifts the boots given to him by Kemmerich to Paul. Leer dies after bleeding out from a deep wound in his thigh. Eventually only Paul and Katczinsky as the last two surviving friends. However Kat receives a severe injury to his shin and Paul must carry him to safety. Paul makes it to a triage station only to discover that Kat, whom he had been carrying on his back, had been hit in the head and killed by a piece of shrapnel along the way. His final friend in the entire world was dead. Though parting from his friends was “very hard”, Paul remarks that “a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army” (Remarque 269).

Using defense mechanisms to cope with the gratuitous struggle of war was definitely insufficient, especially when the bloodbath of the young soldiers’ loved ones overpowers a simple device like daydreaming. Sometimes, all they needed was a breath of fresh air and different scenery to ease into; “These are wonderfully care-free hours. Over us is the blue sky. On the horizon float the bright, yellow, sunlit observation-balloons, and the many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells… We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder; bumblebees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.”; (Remarque 9). Generally, the creative imagery and the depictions of nature were spread largely throughout the war novel, and specifically from this moment in time, it was clearly illustrated. Paul and his fellow comrades found themselves in a seemingly protected paradise and were able to ease in with the tranquility of the “wonderfully care-free hours.” They were detached from both the physically inhumane and mentally deteriorating workings of war. After all the bloodshed and brutality, there was no doubt in mind that the soldiers would not presentably steal the opportunity in being able to be surrounded once again with such thriving life.

The movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” can provide us with a lot of insight about the soldiers experience in World War I. The movie and what we learned in class can help us out with this. In the movie there were a lot of kids and just by looking at their face you could tell what they were thinking. Some of them were very scared of what might happen to them, some of them were determined to come home well and alive, and some of them looked excited to be serving the Fatherland and doing their duty. Back in Germany they told the students over and over that it was their duty to fight in the war and that is what men do in Germany. They were told they were serving the Fatherland and bringing glory back to

World War One, known by many as the “Great War”, lives in infamy as one of the harshest, brutal wars in history. While the high amount of casualties decimated populations, another huge factor was the toll the war had on the youth that served. The madness that was known as trench warfare was the stuff of nightmares, from the horrid living conditions, to the unpredictability of the opposing onslaught of artillery, soldiers were surrounded by death. This trauma and constant stress ruined countless lives, old and young. If the bullets did not get you, the stress would. The question was when, not how. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque told the story of a young man named Paul Bäumer, and how he and

Inspired by a combination of nationalistic fervor and glorified expectations of a short war, thousands of soldiers from multiple countries enlisted to fight in the devastating conflict known as World War I. These men were quickly met with disillusionment when they discovered the truly nightmarish conditions of this war characterized by attrition. Much of the war took place in trenches where soldiers fought in filth and watched helplessly as comrades were massacred by bombshells, machine guns, and mustard gas. As it drew to a close, the survivors were left in the rubble to contend with the unearthly conditions they had experienced and the unspeakable acts they had committed during the war. Struggling to process the unfathomable destruction and