All Quiet On The Western Front Literary Analysis

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Setting (DESCRIBE the time period, geographical location, historical/social context)
The setting in All Quiet on the Western Front takes place around the battlefield of the war, mainly the trenches. It was dark, morbid, chaotic and hopeless. Trench life was dreadful according to Paul. There was so much blood, mud and clamor from the blasts and bombs. The constant pounding of those bombs lasted for days, rumbling in those soldiers' ears. Moldy bread was served and was the only source of nutrition, which caused rats to run about, and also the water supply was scarce. It’s not unusual for soldiers to go insanely mad while cramped in those tiny little ditches while all
agony waited above them. Though the sounds of war were always rampant, Paul and his comrades moved back and forth from camps to the front line, which provided them with comfort and ease.
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Character Analysis (Select ONE important character to DESCRIBE.)
Paul Baumer is the narrator and main character of the story. He was approximately 19 years old when we first met him in the novel. Paul was a member of the German Army, and before he had gone into the war he enjoyed studying, reading books and seeing plays. But the bloodshed and terror of the war effectively destroyed his life forever. He had cut off the past, and had absolutely no hope for the future. What enables him to survive throughout the war was the bond of loyal friendship. The war for as long as it lasted, brought devastation and dismay to everyone, but Paul only endured by his dear friends, which is all he has left. But one by one they are eventually all killed. After his last friend, Kaczynski, dies, there is nothing left for Paul to live for. In the end he finally acquired peace when all was quiet on the western front.
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Conflict (Problem – underline your action verb. No names – no plot elements.)
(Man vs. Society and Man vs. Himself) A young man battles the hardships of war both mentally and physically.
Conflict Resolution (How was the problem resolved? Refer back to your conflict statement.)
The young man’s life was inept and forlorn from the start when he first became a part of the war. Eventually his death gave him the tranquility he had so desperately craved in the end.
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Answer all of the questions below. Delete the question and answer in a complete thought:
• Glorifying war in my opinion is unethical even though it’s widely displayed throughout our culture today.
Glorifying war means to focus more on the action and suspense instead of the loss of actual human life. Glorifying war can also be considered to be focused on heroic behavior. For example, “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon” is a perfect example of many of our collective perceptions of the glorification of war. To begin with, let’s talk about violence. In “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon”, the major villains are killed by the Autobot leader Optimus Prime in gruesome scenes of robot decapitation. At the end Witwicky also gets his hands dirty by killing the rival for his girlfriend. In director Bay’s world, war is the answer to everything. In “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon”, Hollywood teaches that in war the enemy is not only wrong, but often is not even human. With every Hollywood movie that glorifies war and military hardware, our nation is nudged a degree closer to fascism. Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon has aroused millions of moviegoers with the spectacle of violent death, each killing of the “ethnic other”. An example of this in the novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” would be Corporal Himmelstoss. He is tremendously brutal to his recruits, forcing them to follow absurd and risky orders simply because he enjoys harassing them. He had an idea of a cure for Tjaden’s bed-wetting—making him share a bunk with Kindervater, another bed wetter—the bed-wetting results from a medical condition and is not under Tjaden’s control. At this stage of the novel, Himmelstoss represents the meanest, aspect of humanity that war draws
out.
• The war was a dehumanizing, yet a humanizing experience for a soldier. Dehumanization describes efforts to mitigate one's sense of humanity (in its most idealized form) or to make humane, to be kind, or gentle, while humanization is a matter of recognizing the common humanity of one's opponents and including them in one's moral scope. War can make you realize the importance of what you do have, and make you cherish life more, while on the other hand, war can take from you what you hold most dear: your friends, your innocence, and your ignorance on how bad life can get. War is a human invention, but it isn't all about taking lives, as some people like to believe. War also involves protecting others, and saving lives. Which in my humble opinion, are some of the noblest acts a human can perform. There's no denying the adverse effects of war on the human condition. But as with everything else, there are two sides of the coin. There are "rampant acts of kindness" happening all the time, even in war. And I guess I would argue despite it. Soldiers recognize their duty and will do it to the best of their ability, but they do see the harm that war causes and do what they can to alleviate some of the suffering when they can. For example In “All Quiet on the Western Front”, when they came across the regiment, they saw people blown out of their clothes, scattered everywhere from the mortars, or even when Kemmerich was dying and they discussed amongst themselves who would get his boots, because that only meant they didn’t have to go and pull some off a dead body, which in my opinion, isn’t acting human at all, they showed absolutely no emotions, or even the way they thought in their minds, that’s not even human.

• Yes, censorship is accepted during war. Censorship is the control of the information and ideas circulated within a society – it has been a hallmark of dictatorships throughout history. In the 20th Century, censorship was achieved through the examination of books, plays, films, television and radio programs, news reports, and other forms of communication for the purpose of altering or suppressing ideas found to be objectionable or offensive. The rationales for censorship have varied, with some censors targeting material deemed to be indecent or obscene; heretical or blasphemous; or seditious or treasonous. Thus, ideas have been suppressed under the guise of protecting three basic social institutions: the family, the church, and the state. For example, censorship was rampant throughout Nazi Germany. Censorship ensured that Germans could only see what the Nazi hierarchy wanted people to see, hear what they wanted them to hear and read only what the Nazis deemed acceptable. The Nazi police dealt with anyone who went outside of these boundaries. Censorship dominated the lives of the ordinary citizen in Nazi Germany. Newspapers, radio and all forms of media were put under the control of the Nazis. Even the film industry became controlled by the Nazis. Even telling jokes about Hitler became a serious offence - one to send you to the concentration camps and potentially death.