Honors Literary Analysis May 22, 2014
Name: ____Kelsey Moraws______________ Title: ___All Quiet on the Western Front__
Author: ____Erich Maria Remarque____________________ Genre: __war______
Setting (ANALYZE the time period, geographical location, historical/social context)
This location of the story in this novel is almost entirely on the battlefield and it doesn’t talk much about anywhere else except home. Their lives in the trenches is ‘trench-erous’ ha (treacherous). It is muddy, bloody, unsanitary and definitely not pleasant. This all occurs 1917-17 during World War I on the German/French battlefield.
Character Analysis (Select ONE important character to ANALYZE.)
The narrator (up until the last paragraph) and main character, Paul Baumer was a 19 year old soldier in the German army in World War I who was born May 11, 1896 in Germany. Paul was a typical teenage boy, who didn’t have many life experiences went into the army and into war. After seeing war, he was changed. He saw things he had never seen before and experienced tragedies he had never experienced before. After all that he went through, he was scarred. He said it had changed him where if he had seen his own father coming at him, he would’ve shot him also. Paul cared about other people, for example in the beginning of this novel he let a younger soldier curl up to him because he was afraid and he covered him with the helmet. Paul died October of 1918 in peace with a calm expression on his worn face.
Conflict (Problem – underline your action verb. No names – no plot elements.)
A man struggles to survive a dangerous situation
Conflict Resolution (How was the problem resolved? Refer back to your conflict statement.)
The dangerous situation consumes his life
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...h, I suppose, also makes it more tragic. If only this was a dark fantasy that exists only in the writer's imagination.
(195 words)
My response to the critique - 100 – 200 words (show word count) this should be 100% original.
I agree! The realness of the events causes the whole novel to be much more tragic indeed. War tends to be over romanticized and making the people that serve in it thought of as “heroic, honorable and selfless” when in actuality they might’ve been “scared, helpless and human.” There is a lot of despair and sorrow in this book as the narrator watches everyone around him die and in the end die himself. It was tragic to see for a change the main character come to an end. I was thinking to myself after I closed the book, “No! The main character never dies!” It was overall a good book although the language was tough to get through.
(118 words)
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.
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.
use nature as the judge to condemn war, along with shocking imagery, so that his
In a deep, muddy trench, a lone soldier lies, a silver bullet embedded in his abdomen. He clutches his side, screaming in pain, crying for help -- but no one is listening. The sky slowly darkens, and his voice becomes no more than a faint rasping, until it fades into nothingness. Millions of soldiers found themselves in similar situations during World War I, also known as the Great War, which involved multiple European powers; most notably, Germany, France, Britain, and Russia. Written from the perspective of Paul Baumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque follows his journey as he is thrown into the chaos of World War I. At the warfront, Paul witnesses countless horrors that
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
Paul Bäumer, the narrator and protagonist in All Quiet on the Western Front, is a character who develops extensively within the course of the novel. As a young man, he is persuaded to join the German Army during World War I. This three year ordeal is marked by Paul's short, but tragic trek into adulthood as he learns to cope with the trials and tribulations of war. In the wake of a struggle which claims millions, Paul loses his precious innocence as he is further isolated from society and engulfed by bloodshed. Paul's evolution throughout the novel is a result of his having to adapt in order to survive.
In the novel All quiet on the western front by Erich Maria Remarque one of the major themes he illustrates is the effects of war on a soldier 's humanity. Paul the protagonist is a German soldier who is forced into war with his comrades that go through dehumanizing violence. War is a very horrid situation that causes soldiers like Paul to lose their innocence by stripping them from happiness and joy in life. The symbols Remarque uses to enhance this theme is Paul 's books and the potato pancakes to depict the great scar war has seared on him taking all his connections to life. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books represent the shadow war that is casted upon Paul and his loss of innocence. This symbol helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. The last symbol that helps the theme are the potato pancakes. The potato pancakes symbolize love and sacrifice by Paul’s mother that reveal Paul emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.
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."
All quiet On the Western Front, a book written by Erich Maria Remarque tells of the harrowing experiences of the First World War as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier. I think that this novel is a classic anti-war novel that provides an extremely realistic portrayal of war. The novel focuses on a group of German soldier and follows their experiences.
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.
Have you ever thought about what it was like to live during World War 1, or what it was like to fight at war? At first glance of any war piece, you might think the author would try to portray the soldiers as mentally tough and have a smashing conscience. Many would think that fighting in a war shows how devoted you are to your country, however, that is not true. According to All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the reality of a soldier's life is despondency, carnage and eradication at every bombardment. Living every day is not knowing if they will eat, see their families, or even if they will awaken the next day. Demeaning themselves from heroes to barely men without their military garment or identity. Remarque conveyed how
All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.
In this novel, Remarque thoroughly outlines the horrors of war. Remarque identified young, inexperienced boys who have joined up from the same class as volunteers for WWI. The narrator, Paul Baumer, becomes closely acquainted to his friends and soon, they develop a strong bond. This bond will help one another throughout the book and will cause many of them to maintain some of their sanity and to be there for each other, no matter the circumstance. Remarque also expresses his disgust towards savagery, hungry-for-power people. Such as Himmelstoss, who is the most feared disciplinarian in the training camps. He treats his recruits as if he enjoys oppressing them. Soon, Himmelstoss will experience the same traumatic
The dawning sun rose upon a crimson sky, its heat and light struck Tommy’s face. He opened his eyes. He had been dreaming of home. His mother, father, little dog Pip, the taste of homemade bread was still fresh in his mouth when Michael chucked a sliver of salted beef over to him. Tommy tried to re-adjust himself; a stone had been sticking into his back all night. It was difficult, to move among his petit space, only a foot or two of room per solider. The trenches were cramped, hundreds of men and their rifles suppressed into a meagre space. As he chewed the repugnant, leather tasting food he tired wiggling his toes, to bring the life back into them, after the raw and soaking night.