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Creative writing of war
Wars effect on literature
War literature essays
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Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times goes by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.
Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss. The men are in shock because he is so rude to them; they never thought that war would be this harsh. Paul and two of his friends are ridiculed the most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishme...
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...son dies, it really does not mean anything to the doctors, except a free bed. This scene plus the others which take place in the hospital show change in the way that men pull together when someone is in need. The hospital scenes also show that men are so accustomed to death, they know when someone is going to die, and can tell the degree of an injury when it happens.
There is a major change in the men in this novel. At first, they are excited to join the army in order to help their country. After they see the truth about war, they learn very important assets of life such as death, destruction, and suffering. These emotions are learned in places like training camp, battles, and hospitals. All the men, dead or alive, obtained knowledge on how to deal with death, which is very important to one’s life.
Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different as described here. "As if something is inside us, in our blood, has been switched on." The front makes Paul more aware and switched on as if his senses and reactions are sharpened. I think Paul and his friends are frightened when they are near the front line. After they wire the fences and they are heading to the barracks their group start to be fired at by the enemy. They manage to get through the shelling unscathed but they hear a horse that has been shot. The horse makes a terrible noise of anguish and is in terrible pain and it has been shot as the author describes here. "The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and it guts are trailing out." This shows that there are not just human casualties of war; the innocent lives of animals can be affected as much as humans who fight in wars. Detering-one soldier in Pauls group-says." It is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war." I agree with Detering, as animals had no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks Paul Baumers company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large...
Because the men that return have lost their substance of life they feel disconnected to the people back home. This is shown in All Quiet on the Western Front when Paul returns to his hometown on leave and is met by unbearable war-enthusiasts, patriots, his oblivious parents and Kemmerich’s distraught mother – he can’t relate to any of them. His experiences distance him from his past, this is poignantly displayed when Paul states “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear”.
War can destroy a young man mentally and physically. One might say that nothing good comes out of war, but in Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, there is one positive characteristic: comradeship. Paul and his friends give Himmelstoss a beating in which he deserves due to his training tactics. This starts the brotherhood of this tiny group. As explosions and gunfire sound off a young recruit in his first battle is gun-shy and seeks reassurance in Paul's chest and arms, and Paul gently tells him that he will get used to it. The relationship between Paul and Kat is only found during war, in which nothing can break them apart. The comradeship between soldiers at war is what keeps them alive, that being the only good quality to come out of war.
Erich Maria Remarque's classic war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with the many ways in which World War I affected people's lives, both the lives of soldiers on the front lines and the lives of people on the homefront. One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human life. Constant killing and death became a part of a soldier's daily life, and soldiers fighting on all sides of the war became accustomed to it. The atrocities and frequent deaths that the soldiers dealt with desensitized them to the reality of the vast quantities of people dying daily. The title character of the novel, Paul Bäumer, and his friends experience the devaluation of human life firsthand, and from these experiences they become stronger and learn to live as if every day were their last.
Ultimately, it is the disappointment that makes the world of the soldier difficult. It is difficult because it is unlike anything they imagined. What they imagined had been sickly twisted into a truth that was so painful that it gripped their very beings. It was the truth of betrayal; the betrayal of their mentors, their militia, and their people. In All Quiet on the Western Front, young innocents are ruthlessly betrayed on all fronts.
Even when the novel begins, all Paul has known is death, horror, fear, distress, and despair. He describes the other soldiers in his company, including his German school mates with whom he enlisted after constant lecturing from their school master, Kantorek. The pressures of nationalism and bravery had forced even the most reluctant students to enlist. However weeks of essential training caused any appeal the military may have held for them to be lost. Corporal Himmelstoss, the boys’ instructor, callously victimizes them with constant bed remaking, sweeping snow, softening stiff boot leather and crawling through the mud. While this seems to be somewhat cruel treatment, it was in fact beneficial for the soldiers.
The Significance of Dreams in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Works Cited Not Included The term "American Dream" became popular in the 17th century when the
The soldiers in the Second Company form this bond between each other that represents that of all wartime buddies. They develop these friendships where they depend on each other so that they can make it through the war. The young soldiers play cards, smoke together and joke around together to pass time when they are not fighting. Their reactions towards dying friends show their love for one another. “Suddenly little Kropp throws his cigarette away, stamps on it savagely, and looking around him with a broken and distracted face, stammers “Damned sh*t, the damned sh*t!”” (page 18). Even after their good friend Kemmerich passes away, the circle of friends is able to pull together and get through it all. They have a deep love for each other. Some soldiers like Paul and Katczinsky even feel a father/son relationship with each other. “We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have” (page 94). The war has brought them together. It has made them rely on each other for survival and has brought them to forget the horrors of war.
Charles Dickens Pip’s character’s importance to the plot of the novel “Great Expectations” is paramount. Charles Dickens uses an ongoing theme over the course of this novel. Dickens creates Pip to be a possible prototype of his own and his father’s life. Pip’s qualities are kept under wraps because the changes in him are more important than his general personality. Dickens created Pip to be a normal everyday person that goes through many changes, which allows a normal reader to relate and feel sympathetic towards Pip.
The soldiers forget about the past, with good food and rest. Paul contemplates why they forget things so quickly; he thinks that habit helps eradicate memory. When one good thing happens, everything else is forgotten. The men turn into “wags” and “loafers” while resting. They cannot burden themselves with the emotions from the consequences
Many people who have been in wars suffer from PTSD, and Paul has been unable to avoid it, especially after seeing the horrible things he has seen out on the front. On his leave, he was walking along the street, and he describes his experience: “...I have been startled a couple of times in the street by the screaming of the tramcars, which resembles the shriek of a shell coming straight for one…” (Remarque 165). He has linked the sound of the shell with death, thus giving him reason to be frightened. No longer can he relax at home because anything that resembles the sound of the shell will activate his PTSD, an intentional theme that Remarque uses. In the midst of the war, Paul has another episode where he says, “...I see the grey, implacable muzzle of a rifle which moves noiselessly before me whichever way I try to turn my head. The sweat breaks out from every pore” (Remarque 210). Already, Paul is under a lot of stress being out in the tunnels of the front alone, and on top of that, he has to deal with PTSD. Remarque uses this scene to show that PTSD develops much sooner in wars than most thought, and to show its brutal effects. With both PTSD and depression, Paul is spiraling into a world of physical pain and mental
In addition, the brutal trait of the Corporal is revealed is when he makes his student soldiers do chores that are just savage. For example, he makes Paul remake, " his bed fourteen times in one morning. Each time he had some fault to find." (Page 26) It shows how brutal a man can be that a bed has to be made fourteen times and each time there is something wrong with it. Moreover, Himmelstoss has made Paul knead, " a pair of prehistoric boots that were as hard as iron for twenty hours.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.
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