. Indeed, she shows her interest in a specific time of the day punctuated by the tolling of the clock (Big Ben). The novel depicts the creative use of time. It starts in the morning of June 1923 and ends at 3 am. A day in the life of Clarissa, who is going to host a party and invite all of the characters to join. Within that day, she will reveal the inside thoughts of characters within a compressed amount of time. Memories of the characters take them back to a calm life before the war, to the lovely summer of Bourton, the great friendship with Peter and Sally. In the novel, Wool states “ I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters …the caves shall connect and each comes to daylight at the present moment” (Woolf 95). Like Bergson, she focused
Woolf's suggests that moving into future accomplishes the same duration that comes from the remembering of the past, however, Elizabeth is consuming more time because her thoughts are moving forward to events yet to occur. Furthermore, Woolf indicates how an external moment can inspire an infinite amount of internal time when a motorcar passed in the street. One external moment sent a lot of passerby people into their own processes of internal thought. Everyone wonders who might be inside “the face itself had been seen for a few second ” (Woolf 16), and that causes each individual one to explore different trains of thoughts. As if the clock stopped and the attention shifted to that significant moment.
“Something so trifling in single instances that no mathematical instrument, though capable of transmitting shocks in China could register the vibration; yet in its fullness rather formidable…for the surface agitation of the passing car as it sunk grazed something very profound” (Woolf 18).
A similar moment happened when people started staring at the airplane writing messages in the sky. Some critics said that clock time is working against the inner one when the message faded away and no one could figure out what was written“ only for a moment did they lie still; then they moved and melted were rubbed out up in the sky” (Woolf
“All Quiet on the Western Front” is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1928 about Paul Baumer, a 19 year old student, who is persuaded by his schoolmaster to join the Imperial German Army. He goes to the western front where he and his comrades witnesses the horror and brutality of war through a series of deadly, meaningless battles that left an entire generation traumatized. The book was adapted to a movie in 1930 as well as 1979. Having recently viewed the latter, I would strongly recommend that anyone read the novel rather than watch the 1979 film. To clarify, I am not immediately against a film remake just because it is not the original; at times it is interesting to see how a book is interpreted, however books are often difficult to make into a film and unfortunately, “All Quiet on the Western Front” was no exception. Not only was the film an poor adaptation, but it also was not visually appealing, the acting was somewhat poor, the wrong parts were emphasized and the atmosphere of the movie was inferior to that of the novel.
Paul and his comrades face many mental and emotional difficulties throughout the war, and they overcome their feelings by coming to terms with their death. In chapter 2, Paul’s reaction to Kemmerich’s death shows how death in war is hard on soldiers. When Paul sees Kemmerich dying, his thoughts start to take over his consciousness: “My thoughts become confused. This atmosphere of carbolic and gangrene clogs the lungs, it is a thick gruel, it suffocates” (Remarque, pg. 29). Here, Paul reveals his anxiety about death and war. In this moment he realizes his friend is dying from the wounds of war. The war hits home for him; he begins to realize this could happen to him. After Kemmerich’s death Paul wishes to “drop down and never rise up again” so that he doesn’t have to face his feelings (Remarque, pg.
War is a tragedy. We’ve already learned from history that there are no winners in war. We fight for the common good such as money and land to only achieve despair, death, and fear. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, soldiers’ emotions and natural human instincts, such as the will to survive animalistic mindsets are represented throughout the progression of the novel. If a 2015 film were to be made of, All Quiet on the Western Front, If a modern film were to be made of All Quiet on the Western Front, it would describe how war changes soldiers’ view points towards life and forces them to disconnect their feelings from the reality around them by changing their personality and character.
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
War is one of the most horrific things that the human race is capable of. Such armed conflicts are nothing more than a manifestation of the barbarism that lurks within the human heart. Nonetheless, some beautiful things have emerged from the ashes of war. One such thing is Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. This particular novel covers the struggles of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier, and his brothers-in-arms during the First World War. As such, Remarque mounts a concerted effort to try and depict the savagery of war accurately. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque uses plot, character development, and setting to illustrate the horrors of the First World War, as well as the effects that they have on
The Great War was one of the bloodiest wars in history. It resulted in over sixteen million deaths, along with twenty million injured. Its end required the surviving young soldiers who matured during the war, or the “Lost Generation” to start their lives from the ruins the war had left them in. They had no home to return to as they had hardly started their own lives when they enlisted in the army, hence they were left alone, unable to relate to any of the people who hadn’t fought in the war. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is about this generation of young men, their experiences in the war, and how they are affected by these experiences. Through the main character, Paul Baumer, Remarque describes the struggles that
All Quiet On the Western Front was a book with many themes. It starts off with boys graduating high school ready to enlist and ends with one man left. It is the tragic and realistic story of the war. The following themes really stand out during this novel. Never let your guard down, war creates more problems than solutions, and war changes men.
War may be seen as a story only about men. However, the role of women might change people’s perspective of war’s impact. Remarque in his novel All Quiet On the Western Front describes young soldiers’ struggle in World War I, and O’Brien in his novel The Things They Carried reveals young soldiers’ sorrow in the Vietnam War. Despite the time gap, both novels uses literary devices such as selection of detail, tone and imagery to portray how young soldiers see women as the tint of light and fantasy in their darkness. In All Quiet On the Western Front, Remarque isolates women from the war, reinforcing women’s superficiality. While in The Things They Carried, O’Brien portrays women as human beings equally capable of evilness and savagery as all men,
Conventional forms of writing did not portray truth, but rather dealt with certain aspects of life that were distorted and then pieced together via descriptions, coincidences, and transition passages (Blackstone 13). Feminine sensibility was an aspect that could be brought into the novel, and therefore Woolf employed new forms and techniques to her novels (Bernard 12). Through these changes, she consciously made the decision to change the novel from a genre that was developed and dominated by men, to a form that would depict the “movement of things under the surface--the free play of thought, emotion, insight” (Blackstone 12-13). Due to the transforming atmosphere of the time, Woolf was allowed to explore new territories.
In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Ambrose Bierce recreates a few brief seconds of time for a man being executed whose cognition of these seconds is perceived as the better part of a full day. "All that day he traveled…" (paragraph 33). "In "The Story of an Hour," Kate Chopin relates a meaningful, yet unusual hour of time as the last one lived for a woman who has been given the news of her husband's death in a "railroad disaster" (paragraph 2). "She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment…" (paragraph 3). Both stories are centered on the powerful emotions that occur within the minds of the characters as they live out the last moments of their lives. The narrators reveal the most intimate thoughts of each character.
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 extensive descriptions of Mrs. Dalloway’s inner thoughts and observations reveals Woolf’s “stream of consciousness” writing style, which emphasizes the complexity of Clarissa’s existential crisis. She also alludes to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, further revealing her preoccupation with death as she quotes lines from a funeral song. She reads these lines while shopping in the commotion and joy of the streets of London, which juxtaposes with her internal conflicts regarding death. Shakespeare, a motif in the book, represents hope and solace for Mrs. Dalloway, as his lines form Cymbeline talk about the comforts found in death. From the beginning of the book, Mrs. Dalloway has shown a fear for death and experiences multiple existential crises, so her connection with Shakespeare is her way of dealing with the horrors of death. The multiple layers to this passage, including the irony, juxtaposition, and allusion, reveal Woolf’s complex writing style, which demonstrates that death is constantly present in people’s minds, affecting their everyday
The theme of “The Story of an Hour” is split into two parts. The first theme is the death of Brently Mallard and the freedom it will give to Louise. The reaction they get, “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment….,” (3) was an expected one. When Mrs. Mallard goes to her room alone, she begins to imagine her new life without restrictions. She realizes, “There would be no one to live for during those coming years;” (14), but “she said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” (11) Showing her joy at finally being able ...
The imagery in the middle of the story lets the reader feel as if they were in Mrs. Mallard’s shoes, because it is so heavily detailed. This story’s plot moves quickly along with Mrs. Mallard’s thoughts and lets the readers feel as if they are in her thoughts, which gives the theme more dimension. The tone shifts often, which keeps the reader’s attention throughout the story. Though this is an old piece, the theme still applies to to society today. These elements add layers of depth to “The Story of an Hour” so that readers understand the theme even
Clarissa Dalloway and Peter Walsh are defined by their memories. Virginia Woolf creates their characters through the memories they share, and indeed fabricates their very identities from these mutual experiences. Mrs. Dalloway creates a unique tapestry of time and memory, interweaving past and present, memory and dream. The past is the key to the future, and indeed for these two characters the past creates the future, shaping them into the people they are on the June day described by Woolf. Peter and Clarissa’s memories of the days spent at Bourton have a profound effect on them both and are still very much a part of them. These images of their younger selves are not broad, all-encompassing mental pictures, but rather the bits and pieces of life that create personality and identity. Peter remembers various idiosyncracies about Clarissa, and she does the same about him. They remember each other by “the colours, salts, tones of existence,” the very essence that makes human beings original and unique: the fabric of their true identities (30).