What I Learned in English Class I feel this semester, only the first of many I will endure, was a successful one. The objective of the course was to make us better writers, and I certainly have improved. I learned what makes a paper good or bad, what makes it easier to write a good paper, and how the manner that the class is held makes a difference. However, I feel I should have taken my high school English class more seriously. The teacher graded rather leniently, which attributed to my lack of effort. The amount of work required to get an "A" paper in my high school was about equivalent to the work required to get a "C" paper here at Lehigh. It was a very difficult adjustment for me. I went through high school writing what I now know to be not-so-good papers, but received good grades for them. Then, I thought they were good because of the grades I got. Now, I find myself working over twice as hard for half the grade. This isn't a completely bad thing, though. It teaches me that my writing really wasn't very good. What I used to think deserved an "A" I now realize only does deserve a "C." Now I have to take my writing more seriously, and try much harder at producing good output. Also, my goal isn't to write a paper that will get a good grade. Now, my goal is to write better papers. I write to become a better writer. That is, I feel, a very important thing that I learned this semester. I don't think, "O.K., I have to get at least a B on this paper." Instead, I think, "O.K., I have to use this assignment to improve my work." This is a much better approach because it causes the writer to try to produce a well written piece. Writing for a grade often causes the writer to do just enough to get by. I also learned that it is much easier to produce a good piece of writing if I am kept interested. By choosing our own topics, rather than have the teacher give us topics to write on, we often are much more interested in
All Quiet On the Western Front By 1929, the example of Remarque's altered text of All Quiet on the Western Front, as Hemingway pointed out, gave further proof of greater intolerance in America than in England. Aldington's experience with Death of a Hero, however, would prove the exception. This war novel is actually an anti-war novel, tracing the lives and losses of a young group of soldiers caught in the brutality of World War I. Gripping, realistic, and searing with a vision inconsistent with post-war German character, this book caused Remarque to receive death threats and to leave Germany to live and work in Hollywood. (All Quiet on the Western Front) The differences between the English and American versions of Remarque's novel are instructive. Remarque originally had trouble publishing Im Westen nichts Neues in Berlin. It was rejected by the prominent and conservative Fischer Verlag before being accepted by the liberal house of Ullstein Verlag. It was the grim reality of Paul Baumer's victimization in the war, the disillusioned antiwar sentiments and pacifism of the characters that proved problematic for German leftists and nationalists alike, not the matter-of-fact language of the soldiers. But A. W. Wheen's translation for Putnam's English edition, retaining such words as shit, fart, piss-a-bed, turd, and masturbate had to be converted for Little, Brown's American edition. Skit became swine, piss-a-bed became wet-a-bed, cow-skit became cow dung, and the comical simile like a fart on a curtain pole became like a wild boar. Masturbate and turd dropped out of the American edition completely. (Firda, Richard Arthur 1993) Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they ...
Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer undergoes drastic changes as he realizes the full extent in which the war has changed his life. Paul starts out the book as a veteran, yet he is never the less changed by the war that shook the world. Paul realizes the full extent of his transformation when he is forced to kill a Frenchman just because the Frenchman tried to find shelter. Paul Baumer changed by a subject too messy to be discussed in proper decorum. T.S. Matthews says, “This is a book about something that nobody likes to talk of too much. It is about what happens to men in war. It has nothing whatever to do with the politeness, the nobilities, or any of the sometimes pretty and sometimes ridiculous notions to which the world has once again settled down (130).” Paul is changed by a war directed by people who had no idea of the horrors that would change the men of their country. Paul lived in brotherhood and died in anonymity. His life wasted by a political war, and uncaring generals. Only by accepting his transformation can Paul be at peace with his life and live in peace in death.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that communicates many messages concerning war’s hidden horrors and gives insight into the unique experiences of soldiers. Remarque uses a wide array of language techniques and writing concepts to expose readers to truth of the simultaneously corrupt yet complex affair that is war. It is an important, genuine novel – the type that needs to exist to end dreadful human affairs, such as
In a deep, muddy trench, a lone soldier lies, a silver bullet embedded in his abdomen. He clutches his side, screaming in pain, crying for help -- but no one is listening. The sky slowly darkens, and his voice becomes no more than a faint rasping, until it fades into nothingness. Millions of soldiers found themselves in similar situations during World War I, also known as the Great War, which involved multiple European powers; most notably, Germany, France, Britain, and Russia. Written from the perspective of Paul Baumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque follows his journey as he is thrown into the chaos of World War I. At the warfront, Paul witnesses countless horrors that
...y. Especially, in World War I where, a lot of bad things happened to soldiers as of being depressed, and mentally exhausted. One scene where I agree, with Remarque is when Paul and his friends are in hospital where they see the real side of war where everyone is injured. While reading, this book, I was very sad to hear all these gruesome things about a war that we never heard of and how it changed their lives. In today’s world, this happens to most of the people who have served in the war. Most of the people never come out of it. They are constantly are thinking about being at the battlefront and this leads them into sever trauma. They cannot live their life normally.
I enjoyed this book very much. This is partially because I enjoy war books, but I have never experienced any story like this. Erich Remarque goes into such detail throughout this story, that it becomes so easy to imagine the scenes and what was happening. For example, the battle where they were pinned down by mortars in the graveyard. Remarque went into such great detail to describe the trip to the battlefie...
Remarque vividly describes not only the gore that is present on the battlefield, but the emotional turmoil that wrecks the men in the trenches. Paul Baümer, the narrator, describes his inner thoughts throughout the work, as he would in a journal. His position towards the war gradually changes from anger to despair and depression. Early in the book, the soldiers lose trust in the generation before them, and channel this anger at their fathers and school teacher, Kantor...
Many books contain multiple meanings behind them, and have underlying themes to them. The book All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is no exception. The plot of the book revolves around a young German soldier by the name of Paul Bäumer. Paul is in the war with his friends that he had gone to school with before war along with other comrades he meets in boot camp. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front there are four main themes which are expressed by Remarque which include: Loyalty and friendship under fire, unbelievable suffering at the hands of other human beings, betrayal by adults, and the beauty of nature in stark contrast to the psychotic experiences of war. In the book there are four different examples which clearly explain how these themes clearly represent the book. All together the themes show the tragedy that war really brings upon people in the least way deserve it.
...e has his main character make sense of his experiences by working through the episodes of his life to attempt to create order from the experiential chaos. The fundamental immorality of war is the blatant use of people to achieve goals they themselves do not understand or identify with” (Schlieper 3). This is exactly what Remarque does in his amazing novel. Remarque went through the horror of the deadly war and had to work out his feelings in a fictional novel. “The trauma of the war cannot be dismissed, and by engaging with alternative narratives historians can begin to represent and consider this trauma in their work” (Wilson264). The novel is believable because the author was part of the culture presented in the book. Even though it is a fictional work, one can trust the cultural aspects of the novel in relation to the real culture during World War I.
The process of writing papers can be very frustrating. You must first get your ideas together. Getting your ideas together can be one of the hardest parts of writing because you could possibly not know what di...
Being able to write an exceptionally good paper is important to me in keeping my “A” for English class. There are so many resources available that can help in identifying and improving our weakest skill areas so we can write a properly structured paper. I was able to find many helpful resources that have helped to improve my skill areas in achieving unity in a paper, improving grammatical errors and expanding my vocabulary, and writing a rhetorical analysis,. Many of my resources come from the internet and some came from our textbook, “The Little Seagull.” These resources have been very beneficial to me and have helped me to better understand the mechanics of a well written paper.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque promotes anti-war ideals by showing truth in his novel. Throughout the text Paul and his comrades experience all stages of the war that civilians would not be exposed to. The reader witnesses youthful soldiers turn old before their time. One can see the division that separates soldiers from everyone else. The anti-war theme present throughout the book shows the verisimilitude of war, through symbols, characterization, and other themes in the novel.
My first college English class was ENC 1101 at the State College of Florida. In this course, I learned a vast amount of information about writing, reading, and grammar. When I first walked into ENC 1101 in August, I expected the class to be like any other English class in High School; with rushed busy work and a lot of useless tests and quizzes. However, throughout each week of the semester, Professor Knutsen’s class made me beg to differ. This class was not like any other high school English class. In this class I actually learned important information and did not do work just to complete it. This class had a few assignments here and there, enough to maintain, in order to learn proper information. I learned a lot in this class because I was not rushed to
A person could clearly see that by simply looking at the grades that I have made on my final essays. On each essay so far this semester I have been able to earn a higher grade than the previous essay. One thing that I was able to correct by looking back on was usage of the word “it.” As stated by Schwartz, “It is a pronoun, so it must be replacing a noun or pronoun, what is it replacing?” By reflecting to my previous essays and reading this comment I was able to further understand the usage of the word it, and along with this I would be able to correct it in essays after that. Along with getting better grades on my final papers, I was able to further understand the purpose of pre-writing assignments. In the beginning of the year I would look at pre-writing assignments as almost a waste of time, but as I progressed through the course I would see just how much of an impact they could have. Whenever I would do badly on a pre-writing assignment it would usually translate over to a mediocre rough draft. Whenever I realized this I was able to grow off of previous mistakes and spend more time on the pre-writing. The more time I spent on the pre-writing the better grade I would get on that assignment as well as the rough draft. Despite me constantly reflecting to my previous essays, it is still one thing that I need to work on. During one of my essays I was making the same mistakes that I had made in previous essays, so much that my professor stated “See comments in previously graded assignments and apply them to the writing in this one” (Schwartz). I was making so many of the same mistakes that I had to go to my previous paper to see what I was doing wrong. After I read this comment I realized how vital it was to assess the comments made on my papers and apply it whenever I am writing. During the final parts of the course I was able to comprehend comments made by
The novel is based on Erich Maria Remarques experiences with WWI, which gives an insight to all readers of how life is in warfare. With the conflict of Man vs. Man and Man vs. Self, it gives the theme of change in war more amplification. Comradeship gave the men hope and a mini society to live with, enabling everyone to have people to talk to. However, during rough times the dark tone gives the theme of death an extra kick, making all of the elements much more vivid. Erich Maria Remarque’s writing of this novel opens the eyes of readers all around, from going through boot camp, to the final breaths that are