Personal Journal: All Quiet On The Western Front

Words are tremendously weak to express how strongly I missed you. Although our invincible love can never break us apart, my responsibility toward my country came like a vigorous tornado that alienated our golden chain. I’m writing this message to tell you that today we are preparing for our next combat of Vimy Ridge, after the dreadful slaughter that occurred at the Somme battle.

The First World War was a war of many firsts. Not only was it the first true contemporary war, but it was also the first war that introduced new forms of industrial warfare, which resulted in many repercussions. One of these repercussions was the development of shell-shock or neurosis as a result of war in soldiers returning from the battle front. In “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Enrich Maria Remarque the psychological effect of industrial warfare on soldiers was depicted as a paradoxical combination of exhilaration on the battlefront as well as a deep state of numbness and melancholy.

In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, human nature is the only abstract periphery between belligerent barbarism and justifiable violence. Through the insipid bombardments that rained shells over the Germans’ heads and noxious implementation of mustard gas, Remarque dexterously misleads the reader into believing that he fights in an apathetic war where all remnants of human nature and identity have been destroyed with the introduction of trench warfare. Through Paul Baumer’s eyes, Remarque identifies war as an artificial construct devoid of human identity and any subsequent emotions until the first bombardment, the first glimpse Baumer has of the unfettered abominations of war. After the shrieking of artillery shells ceased, it was replaced by the numbing scream of injured horses. Paul described this abhorrent noise as “the moaning of the world…, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning” (Remarque 62), the first emotionally provocative scene in the novel. As if the description of the noise did not suffice to pique the reader, Remarque continues, “The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out. He becomes tangled in them and falls…” (Remarque 63). At this instant, Remarque sheds the obscure layer of superficiality and reveals the tatters of human nature and identity still exist even in most anguish conditions of comeradeship, sympathy, contrition, and selflessness.

Meanwhile, a specific sergeant tried to make my life harder. This sergeant enjoyed agonism which “occurs among those who enjoy fighting for its own sake and who perceive trading insults as a type of game” (p.21). I constantly tried to filter out the words being filled in my head, but my internal dialogue had been so negative and judgmental for so long I really believed the bad things. I could not and did not understand that I was good person with many good characteristics. I was fighting 2 wars in a combat zone, one against terrorists in the desert and the other inside my head.

The trenches would smell like blood, gunpowder, and everything that was rotting in there. After the gunshots have stopped, and the air is filled with silence, the remaining soldiers drop onto the dirt ground, realizing they have survived another day. I always get this uneasy feeling, knowing that although I have survived another day, there is much worse to come. Even though I have survived, every shred of my sanity is gone. Before I go into another restless night, I think about my friends who have died for this war, and finally get the chance to mourn about them.

The meadow near the Western Front was nothing compared to the vast fields of the prairie back home. There, in what seems like another lifetime, was a harvest full of life, colour, and promise. Here, there was only death and harshness. Trevor, our Commander, had once described the scenery of these fields in France before the chaos. He had said it was filled with little red flowers and high green grass. After three years of fatalities and rain, the scene shifted to represent the misery. There was no colour here. Our uniforms that had once been a deep green were now covered with dried mud. The scene before me was bleak. The sky was gray; as it had been since the first day we made camp in these trenches. The ground was muddy with small pools of

It is about the middle of the day and we are on our way to somewhere right outside of Paris. The

War creates fight among humanity and can destroy the minds of adolescents. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a book written by Ishmael Beah based on his personal story of survival during the Sierra Leone Civil War. The book was published in 2007 by Sarah Crichton Books of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in New York. The memoir discusses the struggles of Sierra Leoneans during the times of their civil war from the 1980s to 1990s. Beah concentrates on how children were affected by the attacks of the Revolutionary United Front. Through his expressive words, he strongly discusses the repercussions of war on the

All is going very bad for us in the trenches. No one was really prepared for what this war has brought us. The war has many factors that are very terrible and for most, unbarable. I can not think of a time where I have been more scared.

12th March 1915: The day hadn’t started out differently to any other day. I had just been out to milk the cows and feed the calves. As I was walking back to the farmhouse for breakfast, I met Dad, who had come back from the markets. He stopped the truck beside me and wouldn’t look me straight in the eye. That was when I knew there was something wrong. He wordlessly passed a brown envelope out of the truck window. “GOVERNMENT OF NEW ZEALAND” was emblazoned in bold red print across the front. My heart lurched, constricting my throat. As I opened it, my worst fear was confirmed. In small lettering it announced, “Mr Michael Jones, we need you to protect our country.”

Themes and symbols are key components to writing a novel. In the novel A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, Beah utilizes a variety of themes and symbols throughout the book some more dominant than others. Instead of using words Beah uses symbols to underscore his central theme of freedom because words just cannot explain the freedom he experienced in his life. Three symbols that he uses effectively include the guns when he realizes that even though guns are bad they can be used for good reasons, his cassettes when he realized that music means much more than just entertainment to him and lastly the moon when he realizes that the smallest things in life always guides you in the right direction.

All of us are on guard, just waiting for the enemy to attack. Being a soldier is a hard and scary thing to be. We face so many things every day. Some of the soldiers are starting to get trench foot because it's so muddy and wet in these trenches. I'm worried that I'm going to get it sometime. There are rats and lice running around

It has been difficult surviving out here in this savage wasteland. Occasionally, at night the earth shakes with loud booms some of the men have been getting shell shock which makes them be in some sort of trance. There also has been huge disgusting rats and lice around the trenches. I once saw one of the humongous

Wiping the blood from his face, five-year-old Omran Daqneesh trying to work out what has happened. Another casualty of the war in Syria.

Next part of the book covers the period from the beginning of 1915 until September of the same year. Here the portrait of Istvan Burian, new Minister of Foreign Affairs, dominates the chapter. Fried draws his portrait as an independent statesman, with policies of his own, not just a Tisza’s exponent in the Ministry as he is usually known. Burian was completely committed to the realization of war aims in the Balkans but military defeats in Galizia and Serbia crippled his attempts. Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary came under intense pressure from German ally to accommodate its goals in order to attract Bulgaria and Romania in the war on the side of Central Powers.