`In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque being a soldier in World War I was not at all amusing. The soldiers in the war,fighting for their country, had very inferior living conditions such as ditches infested with rats, a widespread of lice among the men and decaying bodies all around them. This war was the turning point for technology, introducing more advanced weapons making killing much easier. They found from trenches to protect themselves from being killed. Each side would switch off running into no man's land. Not only did these soldiers undergo blatant living conditions but they were also losing limbs, dying and watching their men be killed. Three major ways in which the soldiers were affected by the war in All Quiet on the Western Front were that they faced many physical injuries, they were traumatized by watching man after man die making them fearful, and they gained a great amount of camaraderie. …show more content…
In the beginning of the book two students had gone to visit their friend who had lost his leg. Not only was this war traumatizing for the soldiers but the family and friends of them too. The war was a painful experience for everyone ruining many people's lives. When Kemmerich was injured he was greatly agonized,the battle never really ended for him. He had pains in his foot, but he was more worried about his watch. Another example of physical injury is when the soldiers were in the trenches and a shell fell in the trench, this wounded or even killed many soldier. The war was so bad many soldiers would shoot themselves in the foot just to go home and escape the
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 ...
In Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, characters such as Paul and his friends become indifferent to shocking elements of war through constant exposure to them. For example, the characters are unconcerned about the dangers of the front because they are accustomed to being on the front. In another instance, Paul’s friends show no emotions when they witness snipers killing enemy soldiers. Also, Kat finds the unusual effects of mortar shells amusing. These examples prove that through war, characters of the book have become indifferent to things that they would normally find shocking.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictitious novel written by Erich Remarque that speculates the adventures and life of World War I German soldier Paul Bäumer. Paul is a young man of nineteen who joins the army voluntarily with his friends because they believe being in the military is very honorable and patriotic. However, after experiencing brutal and horrific training, him and his friends realize that their ideas of what nationalism and patriotism are are simply false. Over the course of multiple battles and confrontations with the French military, many men of Paul’s company are killed in combat. Towards the end of the novel, Paul and his group of friends are given what seems an easy task of guarding a supply depot from fighting for three
In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque reveals a dimmer sense of the cost of war. The main character in the book, German soldier, Paul Baumer, embodies the cost of war before he reaches his ultimate fate. The tactics and weapons used in World War 1 were more advanced compared to the past as a result of the industrial revolution. Germany was forced to fight a two-front war and this intensified the losses suffered by soldiers like Paul and the other men in the Second Company (Gomez 2016, German Strategy for a Two-Front War – Modern Weapons: War and the Industrial Revolution). Remarque’s observations that he shares with readers are not to World War 1 because it portrayed not only the physical but mental consequences of combat. Regardless of what era of war soldiers were involved in they were the ones who paid the price for facing so much death.
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.
Why does the world need to kill two million men just because two countries can’t agree with each other? War is devastating to countries and most indefinitely to individuals and soldiers. A war can ruin families, friendships, education, economy, and the minds of innocent people. Most young men, who were just approaching manhood, were pulled of their innocence of childhood, and thrown into a world of rage and destruction. Soldiers that luckily survive a horrific war often find their lives turned completely upside down since they enlisted, and sometimes it is just impossible to forget the vicious past and start over again as a civilian. Many older men believe that wars being fought are wars of dignity and glory, but truthfully, wars are battles of death and gore. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque expresses dramatically the negative effects of war.
Many of Remarque’s ideas expressed in All Quiet on the Western Front were not completely new. Remarque emphasized things that portrayed the magnitude of issues soldiers face, and how the physical body and senses affects their emotional well-being. The ideas in All Quiet in the Western Front of not knowing the difference between sleep and death, seeing gruesome sights of people, and frustration towards people who cannot sympathize with soldiers, are also shown in Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Dug-Out”, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Vigil”, and Sassoon's’ “Suicide in the Trenches”.
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.
Erich Maria Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front in 1929 to advertise the horrors of World War I, the dangers of complete nationalism, and how any type of war can turn even the strongest soldier into an emotional and physical mess. With the novel being written in the early 20th century, the starting point of the World Wars, Remarque had the emotions of the public and Europe and American and the tip of her fingertips. The point of the novel was not to glorify war like previous war time novels had, rather it was to show the horror and the realistic negative aspects to war that the common person would not see. Remarque uses many different ways to portray the violence and horrible aspects of war, but one of the most visual is his description of destruction. This is not destruction of buildings or human made objects; this is the destruction of actual human beings. He uses this method to be able to grab onto the reader. If Remarque was only trying to tell a story, this use of blood and gore would not be necessary, but since he is trying to prove a point about the
This new perspective makes them realize how lucky they were not to be mortally wounded. Another cause of change in the men besides the battles, results from seeing friends in the hospital. The first display of this sorrow is Kemmerich’s death. He was a good friend to all the men, especially Paul. When the men see him lying in his bed about to die, they feel terrible. Because they feel this way, they tell Kemmerich that he is going to be okay. The hospital scene with Kemmerich dying is meaningful and touching to the readers, because it too shows a change in the men. This change shows the hate and anguish of the battlegrounds, contrasted with compassion towards a close friend who is in need. This scene also lets the reader know how many people received injuries each day. When Paul goes to tell the doctor that Kemmerich The doctors response was that he had already amputated five legs that same day. The reader sees why when one person 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, shows 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 deal with death, which is very important to one’s life. & nbsp;
there are different reason that lead to war. the war could be between different countries such as world war I, World War II, and Vietnam war. Also, the war could happen within one country such as the Civil War; however, the results of these different wars are all almost the same; the war effects the people of the countries on war and the soldiers who fight for these wars. however, many people wonder if these effects disappear by the end of the war or if there are other effect on these people after the end of the war. many people believe that the war has impact the lives of the soldiers who were at this war and their lives are no longer the same as the one before they were soldiers fighting for their countries.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about a German soldier, Paul Baumer, 19, and about his and his friends trials they go through while serving in World War I. The trials Paul goes through are not only physical stress but also mental stress. With all he has been through, Paul feels as though he is detached from civilian life and feels so young but witness too much more then he should have at his age.
War is a tragedy. We’ve already learned from history that there are no winners in war. We fight for the common good such as money and land to only achieve despair, death, and fear. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, soldiers’ emotions and natural human instincts, such as the will to survive animalistic mindsets are represented throughout the progression of the novel. If a 2015 film were to be made of, All Quiet on the Western Front, If a modern film were to be made of All Quiet on the Western Front, it would describe how war changes soldiers’ view points towards life and forces them to disconnect their feelings from the reality around them by changing their personality and character.
War is one of the most horrific things that the human race is capable of. Such armed conflicts are nothing more than a manifestation of the barbarism that lurks within the human heart. Nonetheless, some beautiful things have emerged from the ashes of war. One such thing is Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. This particular novel covers the struggles of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier, and his brothers-in-arms during the First World War. As such, Remarque mounts a concerted effort to try and depict the savagery of war accurately. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque uses plot, character development, and setting to illustrate the horrors of the First World War, as well as the effects that they have on
Remarque opens this passage by introducing “the juniper and the birch trees on the moor” as Paul practices drill at the training camp (188). Detailing his daily routine at the camp, he states that "it is bearable if one expects nothing better" (187). That is to say that only someone inexperienced with these drills, and war, would expect even a small amount of leniency. Especially at the camp where the notoriously cruel Himmelstoss "gave Tjaden his education" no soldier would expect a good time (187). Paul performs his drills wherein he must "advanced at a run" and "fling down" in a seemingly intensive nature (187). In the midst of this intensity, Paul focuses his energy onto a more peaceful. He watches as his breath moves "the flowers and the heather too and fro" (188). Despite being midway through a drill, Paul finds time to admire the delicacy of the gentle flowers, moved by the tension in his breath.