Comparison of German and French Soldiers' Experiences
The First World War was a horrible experience for all sides involved. No one was immune to the effects of this global conflict and each country was affected in various ways. However, one area of relative comparison can be noted in the experiences of the French and German soldiers. In gaining a better understanding of the French experience, Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est was particularly useful. Regarding the German soldier's experience, various selections from Erice Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front proved to be a valuable source of insight. A analysis of the above mentioned sources, one can note various similarities between the German and French armies during World War I in the areas of trench warfare, ill-fated troops, and military technology.
Trench warfare was totally unbiased. The trench did not discriminate between cultures. This "new warfare" was unlike anything the world had seen before, millions of people died during a war that was supposed to be over in time for the holidays. Each side entrenched themselves in makeshift bunkers that attempted to provide protection from the incoming shells and brave soldiers. After receiving an order to overtake the enemies bunker, soldiers trounced their way through the land between the opposing armies that was referred to as "no man's land." The direness of the war was exemplified in a quotation taken from Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, "Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowly the dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. We are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying." (382) After years of this trench warfare, corpses of both German and French soldiers began to pile up and soldiers and civilians began to realize the futility of trench warfare.
However, it was many years before any major thrusts were made along the Western front. As soldiers past away, recruits were ushered to the front to replenish the dead and crippled. These recruits were typically not well prepared for the rigors of war and were very often mowed down due to their stupidity. Both the French and Germans were guilty of sending ill-prepared youths to the front under the guise that "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." (380) Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est is a prime example of this "false optimism" created by the military machine in France to recruit eager new troops to die a hero's death on the front lines.
Many cultures, such as Sara’s, is like that. The men of the household depend on women to clean the house, cook the food and take care of the children. The only difference between these people and Reb is the fact that the men make a living to support their families. Reb, however, depends on his family to make a living on top of everything else they do. This is where the line is drawn. These men understand that women can’t handle doing everything and also work to earn money. Since Reb is so religious, he believes women can’t go to heaven without men. But the men have to be religious, so he spends all of his time praying and reading the Torah. He doesn’t comprehend the fact that he needs to support his family and let them be the only ones who carry the
Reb is the product of thousands of years of patriarchal tradition; he has been brought up to believe that “God didn’t listen to women…Women could get into Heaven because they were wives and daughters of men. Women had no brains for the study of God’s Torah, but they could be the servants of men” (9). Reb’s behavior must be tyrannical because the eternal souls of his family rests on his shoulders, his wife and daughters are not capable of get...
Everyone knows what war is. It's a nation taking all of its men, resources, weapons and most of its money and bearing all malignantly towards another nation. War is about death, destruction, disease, loss, pain, suffering and hate. I often think to myself why grown and intelligent individuals cannot resolve matters any better than to take up arms and crawl around, wrestle and fight like animals. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque puts all of these aspects of war into a vivid story which tells the horrors of World War 1 through a soldier's eyes. The idea that he conveys most throughout this book is the idea of destruction, the destruction of bodies, minds and innocence.
Life on the Western Front During World War One A dispassionate look at the numbers of the horrendous casualties sustained by the armies of the Allies and the Central Powers on the Western Front in WW1, clearly indicate that these casualties figures are far inferior to what might be anticipated if, indeed, total war had reigned in every location, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and along all the 475 miles of trenches that extended from the North Sea to Switzerland. A couple of simple examples will readily make the case. Imagine two front-line trenches separated by only 20 to 30 yards of ‘No Man’s Land’ (in some extraordinary situations, distances were even less). A determined and prolonged effort by a few hand-grenade bombers on either side could make any hope of a sustained tenancy quite impossible. Again, given the accuracy and rapidity which trench mortars could be deployed against routinely manned trenches (one battalion per 1,000 yards) and their associated dug-outs, a quite short, but determined, and mutually hostile, barrage could readily reduce both trench systems to total ruin.
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.
Aristotle states that "For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all.
...e into his soul in order to help him and possibly to understand him better. " I might give alms to his body; but his body does not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach." (Page134-135, Paragraph 4) This is the real struggle the narrator is facing, the narrator confusion and frustration with Bartleby would all go away if only he knew what was wrong so he could help him but it isn't a physical pain but a spiritual pain in which Bartleby would have to open up in order for the narrator to help. Tone is just one of the literary deceives used that help convey the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby.
The lawyer, although an active member of society, alienates himself by forming walls from his own egotistical and materialistic character. The story of "Bartleby the Scrivener" is told from the limited first person point of view of the lawyer, or narrator. This point of view allows the egotism and materialism of the narrator to influence how the story is perceived by the reader. The lawyer asserts, "All who know me consider me an eminently safe man" (Melville 131). The lawyer is a very methodical and prudent man and has learned patience by working with other, such as Turkey, Ginger Nut, and Nippers. However, the lawyer's constant concern with his own self-approval cheapens his benevolence toward Bartleby. In fact, the lawyer is not able to see the desperate plight of Bartleby due to his unwavering concern of what the scrivener can do for the lawyer's self-approval instead of what he can do for Bartleby. In this sense, the lawyer's "wall" is a sort of safety net for his own ego. He does not allow Bartleby's irrationality to affect him bec...
Field, Frank. British and French Operations of the First World War. Cambridge (England); New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Through Bartleby’s flat and static character type, it is amazing how many different types of conflict he causes. From the first order to examine the law copies, to the last request to dine in the prison, Bartleby’s conflictive reply of “I would prefer not to” stays the same (Melville 150). In this way, he is a very simple character, yet he is still very hard to truly understand. Even ...
One of Orwell's main reasons for writing Animal Farm was to show how the Russian (or Bolshevik Revolutionaries) Revolution of 1917 had resulted in turning a benevolent ideal of equality into a government of an even more oppressive, totalitarian, and dominating to the people, than the aristocratic one it had recently ousted. Many of the main characters (animals) and synapses of Orwell's parody, run parallel to the event of the Bolshevik Revolution: In Orwell’s novel, The Farm is a representation of Russia and its people, and the most important characters such as Old Major, Snowball, and Napoleon parody the central figures that shaped it into the nation it came to be.
By December 1914 the First World War had reached a dilemma on the western front that neither the triple entente nor the triple alliance had expected. The war had reached a stalemate, a state where both sides are so evenly balanced that neither can breakthrough against the enemy. The advances in Technology played a big role in creating the stalemate through strong defensive weaponry such as Machine Guns and Artillery, this caused ‘trench warfare’ (BOOK 48). Trench war is when troops from both sides are protected from the enemy’s firepower through trenches. Many advances in technology also attempted to break the stalemate throughout the war with tanks, gas and aircraft, these however failed. Eventually the stalemate was broken through a combination of improved technology, new strategies and the blockading of the German ports.
"First World War.com - Feature Articles - Life in the Trenches." First World War.com - A Multimedia History of World War One. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2011. .
The First World War introduced a new type of warfare. New weapons were combined with old strategies and tactics. Needless to say, the results were horrific. However, a new type of warfare was introduced: trench warfare. In the movie War Horse, the character that owned the horse originally while he worked on his farm, Albert Narracott, finally was old enough to join the army. His first sight of battle was the Battle of Somme which took place in France near the Somme River. During this battle, the British troops start out in trenches, which were pretty much tunnels dug strategically to avoid gunfire. The soldiers would wait until they were told to advance, and they would run from one trench to the next. Trenches and the area between trenches were muddy and the trenches themselves were poorly conditioned (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/chapters/ch1_trench.html). Many of the soldiers who fought in trenches succumbed to a foot disease called trench foot and if not treated immediately, gangrene could infect the foot and an amputation would be necessary for survival. Commanding officers ordered one or t...
Character is the next most important aspect of the perfect tragedy after the plot. Every tragedy needs to contain a tragic hero. A complete vil...