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War and its impact on society
War and its impact on society
War and its impact on society
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All Quiet on the Western Front and Siddhartha: Forming values and beliefs through hardship and life experiences Beliefs are one of the most complex, fascinating thought processes humans experience. Throughout your lifetime you will loose beliefs, and develop new beliefs. Although beliefs can be simple such as the belief in a value or person. They can also be complex and cause chaos, violence, acts of terror, or in severe cases even death. Beliefs are fascinating because they can be changed and manipulated in many ways through various reasons. In the modern novel All Quiet on the Western front, by Erich Remarque. the main protagonist Paul Bäumer experience lots of hardship from serving as a soldier in world war 1, which turns his good hearted …show more content…
Siddhartha has A great deal of love and admiration for the ferryman already, claiming he “‘admired’” his “‘calm strength and focus’”(107). Which is why siddhartha goes back to him when he needs help. The ferryman allows Siddhartha to see the river as a teacher, put human perspectives on the river and tells siddhartha to learn from it. This experience greatly shapes siddhartha’s understanding and beliefs, and ultimately is what lets him reach enlightenment. This positive experience was not short,or fast, it was an extensive processes that was drawn out for years. Throughout his whole life siddhartha was seeking enlightenment and thanks to the river and the ferryman he finally realised "When someone is seeking...it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything...because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal."(113). Siddhartha's beliefs and thought process is reformed from the river and he realizes that seeking for something is a lost cause, when you are seeking for something your judgment is clouded and you get so wrapped up in seeking it you don't take everything else in around you. Where as finding something, you have it in your grasp …show more content…
And All quiet being about the world war and its effect on the soldiers who fought it. There are many similar themes and points, Siddhartha is all based around Siddhartha's beliefs changing and him having different perspectives of the people around him, and the world around him. Similarly paul changes his beliefs and perspectives of the people around him, the war he is fighting, and even the enemy he is fighting. Both novels have similar theme, major life experiences form or tamper with their beliefs and perspectives. Although both siddhartha and paul have very different life experiences that form their new perspectives and beliefs, for paul it's killing another soldier, for Siddhartha it's almost killing himself and a river. It isn't about the type of life experiences either, it can be a good one or a bad one. Any major life experiences that humans have will change our perspective and beliefs. Paul came out of his experience killing an enemy soldier, realizing the solider was just like him, and that the war was pointless. Siddhartha came out of his life experiences realizing he had been living his life the wrong way and in order to find enlightenment he has to stop seeking and start finding. In both novels the main protagonist face major life experiences that end up shaping their beliefs and perspectives, eventually
All quiet On the Western Front, a book written by Erich Maria Remarque tells of the harrowing experiences of the First World War as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier. I think that this novel is a classic anti-war novel that provides an extremely realistic portrayal of war. The novel focuses on a group of German soldier and follows their experiences.
"It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once?” Siddhartha took many journeys in his life all of which were necessary for him to reach enlightenment. There are multiple factors that lead to Siddhartha's enlightenment such as his journey through the city and meeting Kamala and Kamaswami. The plays a massive role in his journey to enlightenment. Without any of these he wouldn't have reached enlightenment
...nt. The river does not grant this enlightenment in itself; its purpose is to direct Siddhartha’s thoughts to someone who is ready to listen to him and help his journey.
Vasudeva, the ferryboat captain, was the most important person in Siddhartha’s life. If he hadn’t allowed Siddhartha to live with him and share the beauty of the river, Siddhartha may have never reached Nirvana. Sitting with his pupil by the water and forcing him to listen and look into the depths led Siddhartha to his place of peacefulness.
Remarque publishes his stories which are based on his own life experiences. The similarities between the book “All Quiet on the Western Front” and his life are quite similar. Both the main character and Remarque went through WWI, losing people they love along the way. Going through the stages of grief, Bäumer and Remarque come to the realization that everyone in war has their own lives; they are people as well. Even with the similarities between the author and
Eventually, Siddhartha realizes the error of his ways and leaves Kamala, for a new way of life, but he leaves behind an unborn child. He leaves all his riches and Kamaswami, which was very desperate to find him at the time of his “disappearance.” Siddhartha had reached a stage in his life where he thought there was no meaning, he’s been on the trek for knowledge all his life but he had not attained satisfaction. He wanted to die. “With a distorted countenance he stared into the water…soul suddenly awakened and he recognized the folly of his action.” (89) He became so lost and distressed he did not see a path for him in the world, but then he met the river. This is where he finally reaches his Nirvana; through further scrutiny and under the guidance of Vasudeva, he becomes cognizant of the flow of the world. “The river knows everything…you will learn the other thing too.” (105) Vasudeva is a man that his lived on the river for a long time, and he has learned its ways. The river is a cycle, and everything depends on it. Animals, plants, and even humans need rivers to survive. Most ancient civilizations were based on river banks, so that they can reap plentiful crops. “Siddhartha tried to listen better…thousands of voices.” (134-135) Siddhartha’s study of the river made him realize who was, who he is, and who he will be. The pictures in the water were his life and all other lives that flowed like rivers, and ultimately began anew with
Siddhartha, in Herman Hesse's novel, Siddhartha, is a young, beautiful, and intelligent Brahmin, a member of the highest and most spiritual castes of the Hindu religion, and has studied the teachings and rituals of his religion with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Inevitably, with his tremendous yearning for the truth and desire to discover the Atman within himself he leaves his birthplace to join the Samanas. With the Samanas he seeks to release himself from the cycle of life by extreme self-denial but leaves the Samanas after three years to go to Gotama Buddha. Siddhartha is impressed by the blissful man but decides to lead his own path. He sleeps in the ferryman's hut and crosses the river where he encounters Kamala, a beautiful courtesan, who teaches him how to love. He is disgusted with himself and leaves the materialistic life and he comes to the river again. He goes to Vasudeva, the ferryman he met the first time crossing the river. They become great friends and both listen and learn from the river. He sees Kamala again but unfortunately, she dies and leaves little Siddhartha with the ferrymen. He now experience for the first time in his life true love. His son runs away and Siddhartha follows him but he realizes he cannot bring him back. He learns from the river that time does not exist, everything is united, and the way to peace is through love. Siddhartha undergoes an archetypal quest to achieve spiritual transcendence. During his journey, he both embraces and rejects asceticism and materialism only to ultimately achieve philosophical wisdom "by the river".
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing the future, reducing the quality of his life. At the age of nineteen, Paul naively enlists in World War 1, blind to the fact he has now taken away his own childhood.
Throughout the entire novel the River continues to teach Siddhartha important life lessons. One lesson that the River teaches him is how to be devout and to listen. This is an important lesson for Siddhartha
Throughout the tale, Siddhartha strives to be one with Atman, or internal harmony/eternal self, but by his own attainment. Even when he is offered the insight of Gotama, the divine and perfect one, who is the embodiment of peace, truth, and happiness, he refuses following him and decides to attain Nirvana in his own way. In this, Siddhartha shows his prideful nature but also reveals a positive aspect: self-direction. He realizes that others' ways of teaching can only be applied to their past experiences, but is still reluctant to ac...
Siddhartha starts to get over the leaving of his son by learning the secrets of the river from Vesudeva. He understands the unity that Gautama taught, through the river. He learns 3 secrets from the river: time doesn’t exist, the river is always the same and the river has many voices. The world is like this river, eternal and whole. Now that Siddhartha can really listen to the river too, Vasudeva reaches Nirvana, and he leaves the river with Siddhartha and moves on. Govinda hears about a ferryman and goes to find him. He doesn’t recognize Siddartha and asks for help to achieve enlightenment. Siddhartha says that everything is part of a whole and is always in the present
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war imposes on soldiers, and at the conclusion of the book the empty shell resembling Paul stands testament to this. Not only does Paul lose himself throughout the course of the war, but he loses each of his 20 classmates who volunteered with him, further emphasizing the terrible consequences of warfare. The heavy psychological demands of life in the trenches and the harsh reality of war strip Paul of his humanity and leave him with a body devoid of all sentiment and feeling.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
In his mind, both the path of knowledge and the path of wisdom have failed him. After contemplating suicide, he meets the ferryman Vasudeva and takes up residence with him as an apprentice. It is here, near the river, that he would learn to combine wisdom and knowledge into true understanding. Vasudeva teaches Siddhartha to listen to the river’s voice, which leads Siddhartha to discover where he had faltered in the past and to uncover the nature of the universe itself. As the two men learn from the river and each other, “Siddhartha felt more and more that this was no longer Vasudeva, no longer a human being, who was listening to him, that this motionless listener was absorbing his confession into himself like a tree the rain, that this motionless man was the river itself, that he was God himself, that he was the eternal itself.” Shortly after, Vasudeva departs, leaving Siddhartha as the new ferryman. He is filled with the river’s teachings and Vasudeva’s wisdom and has learned to combine them both into true enlightenment. He has found what he sought. Eventually, Govinda happens to meet Siddhartha, following rumors of the new enlightened one. He is taken aback by Siddhartha’s smile, noting, “this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha.” Siddhartha imparts some of the enlightenment that he feels, and Govinda realizes that he stands before the Buddha himself, bowing in humility. Siddhartha had acquired all of the knowledge and wisdom he needed in order to combine them into what he sought for so long, true inner peace and enlightenment. This final course of action that he took allowed him to combine knowledge and wisdom in the correct proportions, after having an imbalance for his whole
Siddhartha is a book by Hermann Hesse. The book was made in 1922 and is 152 pages long. The book was originally wrote in German but it was translated into English. Siddhartha was Hesse’s ninth book. It was published in Germany in 1922 but then published in 1951 in the United States, but it didn’t really become popular and influential until the 1960s. Hesse dedicated the book to his wife Ninon, after her to Romain Rolland, and Wilhelm Gundert. The reason Hesse wrote Siddhartha was because he wanted to learn more about the concepts of spiritually so he traveled to Asia and other countries in the Middle East. His studies eventually lead to the book of Siddhartha. This book extended the themes of Hesse’s work which was the alienation of man from man, the alienation of man from environment, and the desire for self-knowledge. In S...