All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

1004 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Literary criticism of all things quiet on the western front

Norman Schwarzkof once said, “It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of the men to go into battle”. As young adults, many of us have a preconceived notion that being a hero is in some way the same as being a leader. In times of war, being a leader defines ones as a superior that others look to for guidance and direction in predicaments; not necessarily a hero. The true heroes are not always the ones calling the shots, but the soldiers who courageously leave their comforts behind to fight on the fronts for their country, even if it results in their death. In All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, describes the journey of a young man named Paul and the struggles he endures as an effect of the declaration of World War One by his elders. Remarque develops the theme of how older men’s decisions of declaring war effects the younger generation by elaborating on how this declaration effects the younger soldiers’ physical physique and their mental wellbeing. After the declaration of war by older men, many schools across the world helped further the encouragement of younger generations participating in war through the use of schoolmasters and other students without revealing the dangers war can have on the soldiers physically and mentally. In Paul’s life, his school master Kantorek, glorified the war by withholding war realities by perching to his students that fighting for their country would result in heroism. This inspired Paul and many of his classmates to enlist, but still some were not convinced by Kantorek’s rhetoric. In fear of being ostracized, many obliged to participate in the war. Of course, these glorification where shattered by realty as soon as Paul and classmates ... ... middle of paper ... ...horrific war, the men do not believe they will have psychological and physical power to continue on with life outside of the war. The purpose of older men’s declaration of war is to ultimately fight for what one thinks is rightfully theirs. In order to accomplish this overwhelming desire, a military full of strong, fast and brave soldiers are needed. The perfect generation to fulfill the soldier requirements is the young generation. But, no one realizes the extensiveness of a war, or at least mentions it. Paul and his comrades where encourage to participate in the war because they would become hero. Instead of heroes, Paul and his comrades had to differentiate rhetoric from reality, become men, overcome injury and deaths, implement injury and death, and fear life without a war. Paul did not become a war hero. Moreover, Paul did what any other soldier did, he fought.

Show More
Related

  • All Quiet on the Western Front Essays: Catalyst for Change

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is a book written by Erich Maria Remarque. It was a book written to reflect the human cost of war. It shows us how war has a hidden face that most people do not see until it is too late. In the novel, he describes a group of young men who at first think war is glorious. But as the war drags on, the group discovers how war is not all it is set out to be. As the war went on, they saw their friends either die or be permanently wounded. Then the end comes when there was only one person left.

    Read More

  • The Courage and Strength in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

    2436 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Courage and Strength in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque As I enter my last week as a twenty-year-old, I find myself nostalgically looking back on the past two decades while wondering what life has in store for me over the next two. Where will I be in twenty years? What will I have accomplished? Where will I be living?

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front: Themes

    1012 Words  | 3 Pages

    use nature as the judge to condemn war, along with shocking imagery, so that his

    Read More

  • The Comradeship of War in All Quiet on the Western Front

    452 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Heinrich Von Treitschke's The Young People Of Today

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Young People of Today, a series of opinion polls conducted among young educated Frenchmen by Henri Massis and Alfred de Tarde find romantic sentiments for war much like von Treitschke. The two authors interviewed a professor who tried to explain that there were in fact unjust wars, however, according to the professor, “the class obviously did not follow me; they rejected that distinction” (Massis and de Tarde 224). Massis and de Tarde go on to write about the many young men who left their high studies to pursue lives as soldiers because for them “it is not enough, for them to learn history: they are making it” (Massis and de Tarde 224).

    Read More

  • Free Essays - All Quiet on the Western Front

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    Paul told the story of the war as it happened to him. The reader is taken from the front line, to a catholic hospital, to his home while he is away on leave. His story tells of the sacrifice the soldiers gave defending their country. It also tells of the difficulties of losing friends, killing another man, and going day after day without much, if any, sleep. He died in October of 1918, just before the war ended. His death was described as this, "...his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come."

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whenever one reads or hears about World War I or World War II, you hear of the struggles and triumphs of the British, Americans or any of the other Allies. And they always speak of the evil and menacing German army. However, All Quiet on the Western Front gives the reader some insight and a look at a group of young German friends who are fighting in World War I. “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.....” The soldiers of this war felt they were neither heroes nor  did they know what they were fighting for. These soldiers were pulled from the innocence of their childhood, and thrown into a world of rage. Yet somehow they still managed to have heart and faith in man kind and could not look the opponent in the eye and kill him. For he was man too, he too had a wife and children at home, he too was pulled out of his home to fight for a cause he didn't understand.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story of several schoolmates who symbolize a generation destroyed by the dehumanisation of the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front tells of the men who died, and the tragically changed lives of those who survived. Remarque follows the story of Paul Bäumer, a young infantryman, from his last days of school to his death three years later. Whereas the journey motif is typically used to portray a positive character development, that of Paul is deliberately the opposite. In what has been dubbed the greatest antiwar novel of all time, Remarque depicts the way in which Paul is snatched away from humanity by the brutality of war. However while Paul and his comrades become separated from society, and begin to rely on their basic survival instincts, in their own surroundings they still show humane qualities such as compassion, camaraderie, support and remorse. Paul’s transformation from human to soldier begins in training camp, and is reinforced by the trauma at the front. His return home further alienates him from society, and Paul begins to feel safe at the front with his friends. Nonetheless throughout the novel suffering and mortality bare Paul’s true side, and he momentarily regains his former self. Bäumer, the German word for tree, is an early indication that Paul must remain firmly rooted in reality to survive the brutality of war.

    Read More

  • AQWF

    877 Words  | 2 Pages

    War deprives soldiers of so much that there is nothing more to take. No longer afraid, they give up inside waiting for the peace that will come with death. War not only takes adolescence, but plasters life with images of death and destruction. Seeger and Remarque demonstrate the theme of a lost generation of men in war through diction, repetition, and personification to relate to their readers that though inevitable and unpredictable, death is not something to be feared, but to calmly be accepted and perhaps anticipated. The men who fight in wars are cast out from society, due to a misunderstanding of the impact of such a dark experience in the formative years of a man’s life, thus being known as the lost generation.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Literary Analysis

    2408 Words  | 5 Pages

    The two classic war novels ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque and ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller both provide a graphic insight into the life of soldiers serving their country in the historic world wars. One distinct theme of interest found in both books, is the way in which war has physically and mentally re-shaped the characters. Remarque creates the character Paul Baümer, a young soldier who exposes anxiety and PTSD (commonly known as Shellshock) through his accounts of WW1’s German army. ‘Catch 22’ however, is written in the third person and omnisciently explores insanity and bureaucracy in an American Bombardier Squadron through its utter lack of logic. The two novels use their structure, characters, symbolism and setting to make a spectacle of the way war re-shapes the soldiers.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Comparison Essay

    912 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the fine courage of these poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks made by the poor brave wretches, who are so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but with battered chests, with torn bellies, arms and legs only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon as one looks at them.” Paul believes they have no business fighting the war. For they are merely easy targets for the opponents. By fighting in the war did not mean the soldiers were stone cold and held no emotions.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front the Novel

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    This affects each soldier when the war is finished. When a soldier returns back to his home after the war, he is unable to escape his primitive feelings of survival.

    Read More

  • Tim O Brien Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    571 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this chapter Tim O’Brien effectively explores the conflict between society's perception of war versus a true war story. O'Brien challenges society's perception of war as a glorified piece of art, and those who go off to war are men with great morals, true brave-hearts, to lay their life on the line to protect their family and friends from the enemy, however he labels their perception instead a great misconception. According to Tim O'Brien, a true war story does not contain glory, morals, or the divine truth because "A true war story is never moral. it does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done" (The Things They Carried 68). Tim O'Brien effectively manipulates narrative structure in order to appeal to our emotions. O'Brien gives us the twisted truth in order for us to realize the ultimate truth about war; and once we are conscious of the ultimate truth we can begin to fully understand why morals do not exist in true war stories. O'Brien makes us realize that we need to remove the rose colored glasses we wear so that we can realize, that we can not generalize the truth that war has an "uncompromising allegiance

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Chapter 7 Summary

    415 Words  | 1 Pages

    At the beginning of chapter seven, the Second Company is taken further back to a depot for reinforcements, and the men rest. Himmelstoss wants to get on good terms with the boys and shows them kindness. Paul starts to respect him after seeing how he carried Haie Westhus when he was hit in the back. Tjaden is won over too after he learns that Himmelstoss will provide extra rations from his job as sergeant cook.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front and the Horrors of War

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    People who have actually been through war know how horrible it is.  Society on the other hand, while it believes it knows the horrors of war, can never understand or sympathize with a soldier’s situation.  The only people who can understand war is those who have been through it so they can often feel alone if they are out of the military.  Paul cannot even give a straight answer to his own father about his dad’s inquiries about war.  Paul’s dad does not understand that people who have been in the war can in no way truly express the horrible things that that have seen and experienced.  Nor can Paul fit in with the society who does not understand him.  Paul and so many others were brought into the war so young that they know of nothing else other than war.  Paul held these views on society as he said, “We will be superfluous even to ourselves, we will grow older, a few will adapt themselves, some others will merely submit, and most will be bewildered;-the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall in to ruin.

    Read More

More about All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

Open Document