Literary Critique of All Quiet on the Western Front In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the picture of World War I to the reader. This book is the story of Paul Baumer, who with his classmates recruits in the German Army of World War I. This anti-war novel is an excellent book because through the experiences of Paul Baumer, I am able to actually feel like I'm in the war. It is a very useful piece of literature, which increases the readers' knowledge on how the war affected the people at the time setting. By reading this book, one is drawn into the actual events of the war, and can feel the abyss of death. I believe this piece is very well written. It is entirely simple, lacking any bias remarks, or false patriotism. In this book, Remarque just gives the reader the impression of the war. His great details and way of wording things is incredible. In this book, Remarque is able to portray the nightmare on European battlefields. Paul Baumer, along with other classmates is recruited into the German Army for WWI. The story is told through...
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Show MoreAll 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.
The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
Paul Baumer who is 18 years old, is sent to the front to fight for his
Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the episodes soldiers go through. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to show the great change war has evolved to be. From lining your men up and charging in the eighteenth century, to digging and “living” in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers being exposed in your trench a short five meters away. Remarque makes one actually feel the fun and then the tragedy of warfare. At the beginning of the novel Remarque gives you nationalist feelings through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war Remarque shows how pointless war really is. This is felt when everyone starts to die as the war progresses.
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.
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.
World War I has begun and merely months into the war, pitiful deaths, horrifying injuries, and heartbreaking miseries have occurred. To closely apprehend how impactful fighting in the war is, Erich Maria Remarque, the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, focuses on the transformation of Paul Bäumer, a sensitive, young adult who voluntarily enlists in the German army. Paul engages in war unaware of the ordeal that he will face; and immediately witnesses men blowing into pieces, soldiers holding their own arteries for survival, and gory ugliness of trenches. This rigorous journey is what provides him a new understanding of the world, teaches him how to detach from feelings, and forever alters his thinking. Through the symbolism of books and earth, Remarque communicates how the brutal violence and intense fear that soldiers first-hand
Remarque writes from German soldier Paul Baumer’s point of view. Baumer is indifferent as to what happens in the selected passage from All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This could be because Paul tries to spend as little time as possible
The opening scenes of “All Quiet on the Western Front” highlights the importance of young men in taking part of the battle in World War I. The film discusses the position of Germany in the war and it emphasis to young viewers about how the nations were once at some point in a clash of defeating one another. Furthermore I will discuss the subjects it covers in history with it’s details in the setting, plot and the issues it raises including the themes of warfare. This film’s screenplay, acting, production and music may not be as advanced as today’s movies but it sure does have some flaws and perfections involving its literary techniques. “All Quiet on the Western Front” contains points with some of its weaknesses and strengths. Young viewers
The viewing of All Quiet on the Western Front has widened by knowledge of World War 1, as I now understand an abundance more of how war was like. The film showed me how easy it was to die in war, as one simple mistake is all it takes. Many of Paul’s friends in the film perished, as they were mainly caused by amputations.
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 film brilliantly portrays the war with no enemy’s, just people and relationships. It is the story of friends, Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) and his friends joining the war through propaganda, and leaving through death.
The story of several schoolmates who symbolize a generation destroyed by the dehumanisation of the First World War, All Quiet on the Western Front tells of the men who died, and the tragically changed lives of those who survived. Remarque follows the story of Paul Bäumer, a young infantryman, from his last days of school to his death three years later. Whereas the journey motif is typically used to portray a positive character development, that of Paul is deliberately the opposite. In what has been dubbed the greatest antiwar novel of all time, Remarque depicts the way in which Paul is snatched away from humanity by the brutality of war. However while Paul and his comrades become separated from society, and begin to rely on their basic survival instincts, in their own surroundings they still show humane qualities such as compassion, camaraderie, support and remorse. Paul’s transformation from human to soldier begins in training camp, and is reinforced by the trauma at the front. His return home further alienates him from society, and Paul begins to feel safe at the front with his friends. Nonetheless throughout the novel suffering and mortality bare Paul’s true side, and he momentarily regains his former self. Bäumer, the German word for tree, is an early indication that Paul must remain firmly rooted in reality to survive the brutality of war.
Dark clouds settled above, forever watching the monstrous scene forming below. Flashes of lightning lit up the caliginous sky, a temporary false dawn. Rain moulded the once solid ground into a sodden, quagmire mess. War was the worst at night; when the fear of whistling bombs deprived soldiers of sleep and dreams of drowning in a green sea caused their hearts to palpitate. It was then, that they were left with their undesired thoughts. Waiting, watching, for the next barrage. The men sat silent and still; their thoughts repressing them from distant rest. Their eyes were empty sockets, stripped raw by the weight of their experiences in war. Settled amongst the soldiers on the Western Front, a distinctively younger boy stood out from the rest, eyes vibrant, ardent for some desperate glory.