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Psychological impact war has on soldiers
Authors explanation on ways to show patriotism essay
Psychological impact war has on soldiers
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All Quiet on the Western Front All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to portray the overwhelming effects and power war has to deteriorate the human spirit. Starting out leaving you're home and family and ready to fight for you country, to ending up tired and scarred both physically and mentally beyond description. At the beginning of the novel nationalist feelings are present through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war it is apparent how pointless war really is. All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that greatly helps in the understanding the effects war. The novel best shows the attitudes of the soldiers before the war and during the war. Before the war there are high morals and growing nationalist feelings. During the war however, the soldiers discover the trauma of war. They discover that it is a waste of time and their hopes and dreams of their life fly further and further away. The remains of Paul Baumer's company had moved behind the German front les for a short rest at the beginning of the novel. After Baumer became Paul's first dead schoolmate, Paul viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantorek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military. " While they taut that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already that death-throes are stronger.... And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone, and alone we must see it through."(P. 13) Paul felt completely betrayed. " We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted. Life is short." (P 139) Views of death and becoming more comfortable with their destiny in the r became more apparent throughout the novel. Paul loses faith in the war in each passing day. * Through out the novel it was evident that the war scarred the soldiers permanently mentally. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started. Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we runt again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: "where's Himmelstoss?" Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.
So said German World War I Veteran, Erich Maria Remarque, in his book All Quiet on The Western Front. War is an extremely complex and corrupt affair that many can’t even begin to comprehend. This juxtaposing quote perfectly depicts how Remarque’s detailed and personal novel allows the reader inside the mind of a soldier, giving unique insight on war. The novel follows the events narrator Paul Bäumer encounters whilst at war and shows Bäumer’s reflective thoughts on these events. This form of narration is a large part of what makes the book so effective. The book conveys many strong messages about war but the most prominent ones in the story line are:
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.
War is depicted as a horrid situation that takes one 's innocence along with joy and happiness. War changes a person completely through the dehumanizing violence illustrated through Paul, a innocent young man who transformed by war into a man with everything stripped from him. The symbols that help this theme are his books and potato pancakes that both support the effect war has had on Paul by changing his views and taking all his connections to joy. The books represent the shadow war has casted while the potato pancakes mean love and blessing that gets unthanked by Paul since he lost the ability to feel in a constant state of
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel set in World War I, centers around the changes wrought by the war on one young German soldier. During his time in the war, Remarque's protagonist, Paul Baumer, changes from a rather innocent Romantic to a hardened and somewhat caustic veteran. More importantly, during the course of this metamorphosis, Baumer disaffiliates himself from those societal icons-parents, elders, school, religion-that had been the foundation of his pre-enlistment days. This rejection comes about as a result of Baumer's realization that the pre-enlistment society simply does not understand the reality of the Great War. His new society, then, becomes the Company, his fellow trench soldiers, because that is a group which does understand the truth as Baumer has experienced it.
Paul and his friends move back and forth between their camp and the front lines and for Paul almost nothing else exists but the game of war and the ground it is played on. life is extremely horrible for the men due to constant bombing lasting for days and rations of mouldy bread, these conditions show the literal effects on the soldiers. There are also rats living with them in the trenches that crawl over them in the night and the soldiers are forced to kill them like they are the enemy. Living in the trenches at the front surrounded by constant shelling and bombing means that the men live with a lot of anxiety and fear, causing some recruits to become mentally unstable. In the book some of the newer soldiers attempt suicide, showing that the war has damaged them to the point of them not caring for their lives
Paul and his company were once aspiring youth just graduating school thinking about having a wonderful life. Sometimes things don’t always play out the way you want. The effects of war on a soldier is another big theme in the novel. Paul describes how they have changed and how death doesn’t affect them anymore. “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defen...
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times goes by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.
The emotions of the average young man are lost at war as their entire lives are put into perspective. Paul's young adulthood is lost and he does not feel shame in frivolous things any longer. His emotions are not the only thing he loses, as he also disconnects from his past, present and future.
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is an abstruse proclamation against war, which focuses especially on the destroying effects of war on soldiers’ humanity. Romantic ideals of warfare are under attack throughout Paul’s narration. The novel depicts the detachment between rhetoric about patriotism and honor and the real horror of trench warfare (Julie Gilbert, 1995). The author constantly underlines that the soldiers do not fight for hypothetical believes of patriotic spirit; they fight to survive. They are busy with looking for shelter, food, and clothing. They do their best to avoid gunfire and bombs. Nothing makes the true experience of war look fair in this novel. Even the friendship between Paul and his fellow soldiers
All Quiet On The Western Front exposes the cruelty of the war and hypocrisy of view as glorious. To begin with, in the beginning of the story and throughout the book, there was a lot of propaganda towards the war. The young boys who decided to go were labeled as the “iron youth” and were seen as something to be proud of, I guess. For example, the teacher says joining the war shows, “courage, strength, and love for your country.” (pg.12-13). Another way the author described the war, was by including how everyone who weren’t fighting were glorying the war. Clearly, as the story goes on it didn’t really prove or show anything other than how horrible and chaotic the war actually was. An example of this was when Paul said, “There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that there was only one way of doing well, and that way theirs. And that is just why they let us down so badly.” (Pg. 47). All in all, this just shows Remarque including the whole propaganda to
War always seems to have no end. A war between countries can cross the world, whether it is considered a world war or not. No one can be saved from the reaches of a violent war, not even those locked in a safe haven. War looms over all who recognize it. For some, knowing the war will be their future provides a reason for living, but for others the war represents the snatching of their lives without their consent. Every reaction to war in A Separate Peace is different, as in life. In the novel, about boys coming of age during World War II, John Knowles uses character development, negative diction, and setting to argue that war forever changes the way we see the world and forces us to mature rapidly.
Irony is not always funny; verbal, dramatic, and situational irony are often used to assert truth or to add depth to an author’s writing. In Erich Maria Remarque’s book, All Quiet on the Western Front, the reader experiences years of life on the front of World War I through the eyes of a young German man, Paul Bäumer, who has enlisted with his classmates at the expectation of their schoolmaster. Remarque uses irony throughout his novel, best displayed in the names of the characters, the various settings, and in the deaths of the characters.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul is morphed from an innocent child into a war veteran who has a new look on society. Paul used to have a carefree life where he was able to be a kid, but when he enlisted into the army it all changed. Paul became a person whose beliefs were changed because of the war. Paul doesn't believe in society anymore especially parents, elders, and school, which used to play a big part in his life. He changed his beliefs because society does not really understand how bad war really is and pushed many young men, who were not ready, into the army. Paul connects with his fellow soldiers because they are going through the same situation and feel the same emotions. Paul's beliefs were changed by the lies that were told to him.
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.
World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.