In the poem “At The Somme: A Song of the Mud” by a woman named Mary Borden, the author describes what really happens during battle to help reader realize the terrible conditions soldiers must endure.
At the beginning of the poem, the author explains how the mud in the war zone is very difficult to deal with. The mud gets in the way of everything and makes fighting hard. The explains that it gets in the way by saying, “His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes it.” (L.9) This shows that the mud causes the clothes to be stiff, which must be difficult to deal with since they are in battle and have to move a lot. The author also shows that mud is hard to work with by saying, “The impertinent, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome/The slimy inveterate nuisance,” (L.19&20) This shows that the mud makes the battle even harder for the soldiers since it is everywhere. Soldiers must deal with harsh conditions and mud makes it even more difficult to fight.
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If mud destroys weapons, that makes battle problematic. The author shows us the ruination by saying, “That spoils the working motors and crawls into their secret parts,” (L.23) This shows that the mud gets into tank motors and destroys them, if the motors are broken it sets a disadvantage for a troop. The author shows us destruction by saying, “That has no respect for destruction.../That sucks the guns down…” (26/25) This shows that mud ruins weapons and takes guns which are crucial in war. The destruction of weapons that is caused by mud makes battle very tough for
Just envision you were a soldier running, ducking, and dodging bullets. The heat from exploding grenades burning the back of your neck, having to hide in wet, smelly, muddy trenches in order to survive. The only way to keep in touch with your family and friends is by writing a letter, not knowing when they will receive it or if they will even write back. Imagine having to carry a large amount of weapons, for example: machine guns, pistols, grenades, flamethrowers, or rifles. Now, we are lucky that's only a vision in our minds, because in 1914, that was reality for the soldiers of World War I. the author Eric Maria Remarque used these visions and facts in hi novel titled All Quiet on the Western Front. The question to be answered is; did the characters and setting of this novel deeply portray the time period of World War I or did Remarque make everything up?
Throughout the book Sledge talks about the reality of the war and it is vividly portrayed in this chapter. Sledge most likely named the chapter “Of Mud and Maggots” because earlier in the book he stated that Okinawa was very muddy and filthy, even worse than Peleliu. Therefore, from the chapter title we can infer that the chapter will be about how disgusting and disturbing war can be. The chapter title gives the chapter a sort of disgusting tone, because when people think of mud and maggots it's usually not a pleasing thought. In the chapter Sledge sees a marine and says that “He was filthy like all of us, but even through a thickly mud-caked dark beard I could see he had fine features.” (Pg. 242) this is the first instance in the chapter where Sledge uses mud and he uses it to describe how filthy a marine is, this shows how much mud was at Okinawa and how soldiers had to deal with it no matter what*. In Okinawa, Sledge and the soldiers encountered some horrible weather, “The weather was chilly and mud, mud, mud was everywhere. We slipped and slid along the trails with every step we took.” (Pg. 248) this is another instance where Sledge talks about mud and it shows how the mud impacted them and increased the difficulty of battle. Later in the chapter when Sledge was going up a hill he slipped and slid down the hill into a hole filled with muddy water and a skeletal body covered in maggots, he then had to scrap the maggots off of his clothes with his knife. This scene alone shows how disturbing the conditions at Okinawa were, the mud continued to get worse as the battle went on and there were maggots
Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume 1 of the "Liberation Trilogy." New York: Henry Holt, 2002.
David W. Blight's book Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory and the American Civil War, is an intriguing look back into the Civil War era which is very heavily studied but misunderstood according to Blight. Blight focuses on how memory shapes history Blight feels, while the Civil War accomplished it goal of abolishing slavery, it fell short of its ultimate potential to pave the way for equality. Blight attempts to prove that the Civil War does little to bring equality to blacks. This book is a composite of twelve essays which are spilt into three parts. The Preludes describe blacks during the era before the Civil War and their struggle to over come slavery and describes the causes, course and consequences of the war. Problems in Civil War memory describes black history and deals with how during and after the war Americans seemed to forget the true meaning of the war which was race. And the postludes describes some for the leaders of black society and how they are attempting to keep the memory and the real meaning of the Civil War alive and explains the purpose of studying historical memory.
Away from the front lines, soldiers are perceived and act as individuals, however, when pulled to the front, they come together creating and inseparable bond of camaraderie. Remarque’s All Quite on the Western Front illustrates the true content of war. The soldiers of the front lines fought with a common purpose, putting aside other desires and denying personal needs, creating a flagrant bond of camaraderie. Through this camaraderie Paul Baumer finds life on the front lines bearable, as we see in the relationships the soldiers share. Through Paul’s protection of his comrades, the family like relationship between the soldiers and the development of a close bond during free time, Remarque shows that the most important aspect of war is undoubtedly camaraderie.
They carried the land itself- Vietnam, the place, the soil- a powdery orange- red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces” (364) .
The day to day life for the regular soldier was not glorious. Many times the regiments were low on supplies such as food and clothing. They lived in the elements. Medical conditions were grotesque because of the lack of advanced equipment and anesthesia. “Discipline was enforced with brutality” as if all the other conditions were not bad enough.
Why is it we give authority to certain people? What allows us to test them? In the book All Quiet on the Western Front Remarque questions what power we put into figures of authority from seeing how they view Kantorek, the Kaiser and Himmelstoss.
WWI was a European war that occurred between 1914 and 1918 and took over 17 million lives. The war began after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a terrorist group fueled by nationalism. Countries entered the war as a result of contractual agreements with other nations and increasing competition for military power and imperialized colonies while individual soldiers felt inspired by the glorification of the war and a sense of pride in fighting for their country. The novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque explores the experiences and motivations of these soldiers and how it affected them emotionally and psychologically, specifically German soldiers fighting in the Western Front. Most individuals thought that WWI was
Young men in old, ill-fitted uniforms lay twisted on dried, grassy wheat as we can see them reaching for a weapon that once laid above them or clutching their fists to take the pain away as dawn arises and dense fog hovers the horizon and tiny peaks of mountain peer out above a ruthless and needlessly waste. Tiny horse like figures blend into the background, posing like trees as riders dislodge, seeming to search and strip the bodies of shoes, weapons, anything that can help the next soldier survive.
The repetition of the word “nasty,” demonstrates the narrator’s resentful attitude towards his masters. In the text the author states that his masters “dabbled in nasty mud” and, “dabbled in nasty science.” This statement shows that the narrator is disgusted with the work that his masters are doing because he himself can’t do experiments or play with mud because he is, “forced to work,” because his class is lower than his masters, but also conveys that he thinks he is better because he does not do those things. Furthermore the narrator states,
For instance, “smell of gunpowder” (Magnus, 6), which is repeated multiple times, is a demonstration of how much the soldier values his war memories, for the solder describes the smell as “stimulating” (Magnus, 8) and “life-giving” (Magnus, 7). At the same time, as the soldier describes war in an enumeration towards the end of the poem, the audience learns his sadness and regret in face to the fact that “No one comprehends a soldier’s work anymore” (Magnus, 28). This enumeration, however, is used to recreate the images that the soldier experienced during his service so that the audience would feel the intensity of war. In addition, the assonance in “knobby bones” (Magnus, 4), on top of emphasizing the bold character of the soldier despite his age, evokes an image of an old, forceless man, which fits well with the beginning of the poem, in which the soldier is portrayed as weak and unenthusiastic.
Images such as “limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind/Drunk with fatigue”, portray how soldiers lost their boots but nevertheless had to continue walking although their feet were bleeding. Besides this the quote suggests that due to their severe conditions several soldiers were barely able to flee the continuous gas or bombs attacks from the enemies. Finally, in order to describe the unawareness of the soldiers as well as their terrible conditions and mental state descriptive language such as „asleep, drunk and deaf” have been intensively used throughout Owens
In ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’, Owen compares the solders who are men to ugly, old, sick women through the simile “coughing like hags”, highlighting that the men no longer possess strength, masculinity, exceptional physical skills and potency. As a result, the soldiers’ eradicated youth and innocence portrays the dehumanising effect that the soldier’s have faced through their experiences of the war. Additionally, Owen further explores this dehumanising effect through the exaggerated movement of the soldiers in the hyperbolic metaphor “We cursed through sludge”, illustrating the ghastly and gruesome environment made up of a mix of materials such as body parts of other fellow soldiers, blood and mud. The horrendous conditions the soldiers faced for a long period of time had a drastic impact on the soldier’s mental health which in turn lead to post-traumatic stress disorder or shell-shock disorder and lost of potency. Owen also portrays that not only did the war affect a few soldiers, but all the soldiers through the repetition of “all”. Ultimately, it is conveyed that the soldiers had to unwillingly sacrifice their human attributes and was dehumanised as a result of human conflict. Similarly, in ‘The Next War’, Owen
Owen opens his poem with a strong simile that compares the soldiers to old people that may be hunch-backed. ‘Bent double, like old beggars like sacks.’ ‘like sacks’ suggests the image that the soldiers are like homeless people at the side of a street that is all dirty. This highlights that the clothes they were wearing were al...