"If I were asked what education should give, I would say it should offer breadth of view, ease of understanding, tolerance for others, and a background from which the mind can explore in any direction… Education should provide the tools for a widening and deepening of life, for increased appreciation of all one sees and experiences. It should equip a person to live life well, to understand what is happening about him, for to live life well one must live with awareness." This quote is from Louis L'amour’s autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. Out of the pieces of literature read during the English I course, the war novel All Quiet on the Western Front best exemplifies this standard of education. There are various qualities that the book teaches to readers, and they are in no way cliché. Through eyes of a German soldier, an uncommon choice in wartime material, the audience learns what truly occurs on the battlefield. All Quiet on the Western Front also explores the need for intimate relationships. The novel provides an excellent education because presents the horrors of war without bias, offers the alternate point of view of an important point in world history, and describes an increased appreciation for relationships between nature and humans during war.
Remarque vividly describes not only the gore that is present on the battlefield, but the emotional turmoil that wrecks the men in the trenches. Paul Baümer, the narrator, describes his inner thoughts throughout the work, as he would in a journal. His position towards the war gradually changes from anger to despair and depression. Early in the book, the soldiers lose trust in the generation before them, and channel this anger at their fathers and school teacher, Kantor...
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...alize how little is accomplished politically by mass bloodshed. All Quiet on the Western Front also pokes holes into the common stereotype of World War I and II, often leading modern society to the impression that all german soldiers were black hearted and pitted against the allied forces with every bone in their body. Remarque dissolves this with his blunt candor, especially in Paul’s few days with corpse of Gérard Duval the French Printer. Paul soon sees that the two were comrades and could have easily been brothers if it weren’t for the war and their governments. Erich Remarque’s brilliant novel is one that educates the mind of the atrocities of war, and what political leaders often try to hide from their people. The classic work of literature teaches one of the horrors of war from a non-standard point of view, and shows the intimacy of a soldier and nature.
Remarque introduces Paul at the beginning of the novel as a veteran. We never see his first days in combat, but we do see comparable experiences in the battles of the replacement soldiers. Paul comments in the beginning on the secrets to staying alive in the trenches by learning the skill of differentiating between the different kinds of shells by the sounds that they make. He can distinguish between gas shells, trench mortars, and long range artillery by saying, “That was a twelve-inch, you can tell by the report. Now you’ll hear the burst (52).” and imparts this key knowledge to the recruits. These actions exemplify Paul’s character at the beginning of the novel. He cares about the other soldiers and uses his veteran’s status as a source of knowledge for the volunteers. Paul has light humor in regards to a soldier’s life as well. This quote exhibits Paul’s carefree attitude toward his situation,
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front gives you detail and insight into the long, destructive “Great War”. Quickly, romantic illusions about combat are disintegrate. Enthusiastic teenage boys convinced to fight for their country by their patriotic teachers came back feeling part of a lost generation . This novel teaches us what a terrifying and painful experience World War I was for those fighting in the trenches on the front.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that communicates many messages concerning war’s hidden horrors and gives insight into the unique experiences of soldiers. Remarque uses a wide array of language techniques and writing concepts to expose readers to truth of the simultaneously corrupt yet complex affair that is war. It is an important, genuine novel – the type that needs to exist to end dreadful human affairs, such as
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.
In his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque depicts a transition in the nature of reality from idealism to realism and naturalism. This transition takes place at different parts of his novel, and to different degrees. At the beginning of the novel, on page 12, we see through Paul B„umer's comments regarding Kantorek that he and his friends were taught in school of the "glory" of war. B„umer stated, ".they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing." Since B„umer and his friends respected and trusted Kantorek, they hardly gave the prospect of not going into war a second glance. On pages 84-85, the conversation between B„umer, Mller, and Kropp reveals that practically everything they were taught in school is of no use to them anymore. All of the knowledge they had acquired via their studies was not applicable in the trenches. Instead of having to know, for instance, "How many inhabitants has Melbourne?", they have to know how to light a cigarette in pouring rain. On page 263, Paul comments, "I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow." This sums up his entire disposition towards himself at the end of the novel. He was taken into the army, willfully, but still taken, in the prime of his youth, to a place where death and destruction were facts of life. Remarque depicts a transition in the value systems of Paul and his comrades.
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, is a classic anti-war novel about the personal struggles and experiences encountered by a group of young German soldiers as they fight to survive the horrors of World War One. Remarque demonstrates, through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier, how the war destroyed an entire generation of men by making them incapable of reintegrating into society because they could no longer relate to older generations, only to fellow soldiers.
As war wages on, the German youth continuously fight forces beyond their control leading the young soldiers to dehumanization. Remarque indicates that patriotism is a thought of the past as the young newcomers are exposed to the authenticity of trench warfare. In the beginning of the novel the German recruits experience some inhumane training in the trenches running along the Rhineland, and thus quickly learn that surviving or dying has hardly anything to do with their toughness (Napierkowski 6). This realization materializes as the young Germans start fighting fresh, well-equipped Allies troops. Not only are the Allies troops fresh and well-equipped, but they outnumber the German troops in quantity and devastating equipment. The Allies list of destructive equipment includes: tanks, airplanes, poison gas, bombs and machine guns. The Allies technology only make survival for the German troops only more difficult as the trenches offer ...
...machinery – such as machine guns, tanks, and aeroplanes – seems to have made the biggest impact. On the other hand, psychological damage – such as feeling of abandonment, disconnectedness, and disillusionment – seemed to be at the crux of Remarque’s experience. Nevertheless, both emphasize the sheer amount of carnage and violence that human race has never seen before. As such, they both highlight the worthlessness of human life, which is caused by the technological advancement in the modern European society. In studying these two texts, one must be able to carefully distinguish the subtleties of the authors’ lessons as well as be able to perceive the bigger picture in which the story is set. Nevertheless, it is paramount to understand how these lessons are derived from their experiences and to comprehend the deeper meaning of their lessons set in historical context.
Remarque accurately portrays all aspects of the war. However Remarque is best able to portray the effects the war has on the soldiers and the rest of the people and the scene of the battlefield compared to home.
Remarque demonstrates Baumer's disaffiliation from the traditional by emphasizing the language of Baumer's pre- and post-enlistment societies. Baumer either can not, or chooses not to, communicate truthfully with those representatives of his pre-enlistment and innocent days. Further, he is repulsed by the banal and meaningless language that is used by members of that society. As he becomes alienated from his former, traditional, society, Baumer simultaneously is able to communicate effectively only with his military comrades. Since the novel is told from the first person point of view, the reader can see how the words Baumer speaks are at variance with his true feelings. In his preface to the novel, Remarque maintains that "a generation of men ... were destroyed by the war" (Remarque, All Quiet Preface). Indeed, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the meaning of language itself is, to a great extent, destroyed.
Remarque also tried to teach his audience. Written within a decade of the end of the war, the book calls on those who forfeited their youth to the war not to allow time to hide what had happened. Time may heal all wounds, but the cause of those wounds must not be forgotten, nor allowed to repeat itself. The author is; however, pragmatic enough to realize that all will not learn the lesson; nevertheless, those who are willing to learn it will discover that the story has been told before, and without their intervention, it is doomed to be told again.
Erich Remarque uses the character Paul Baümer to depict the image of war. All of the knowledge the reader acquires, of war and its effects on the men are through his thoughts and experiences. Due to this first
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”.
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.
The title of the poem “July Man”, at first impression seems like it is going to deal with a season or weather. When the reader takes a deeper look into the poem the reader comes to a realization that it has nothing to deal with a season and weather. Instead, the poem talks about the narrator. The reader is able to learn more about the narrator through Margaret Avison’s use of natural imagery/imagery, hyphenated words and the brackets in a few of her stanzas.