Preview

The Role Of War In All Quiet On The Western Front

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1311 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Role Of War In All Quiet On The Western Front
Interpretation of war and the relationship between soldiers and civilians are different when discussing World War 1 and the wars of today. Whether one is a soldier, spectator from far away, or a civilian watching it first hand, war cannot truly be comprehended and understood, unless it has been physically experienced. Erich Maria Remarque, a German World War I veteran, depicts the atrocities and brutalities of war in his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. The gap between the expectations of soldiers and civilians are solidified through civilians’ inability to comprehend the impacts of war. This destruction of war has created such a profound impact on soldiers as they are now unable to formulate and comprehend their true identity as compared to their interpretation of who they were before the war.
The foundation for this …show more content…
The basis of the civilians’ perceptions of soldiers is derived through overriding nationalist and patriotic ideals of a nation. According to civilians, these soldiers are seen as “young heroes.” They believed the driving principle for joining the war was out of glorified honor of being a soldier sacrificing their lives. The soldiers themselves originally went into the war celebrating this nationalist fervor and were described to be “crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character.” Unfortunately, these idealized paradigms of what it means to be a “soldier” are proven false. Even wartime propaganda supported these romanticized views and the soldiers themselves recognized the false accusations
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Summary: All Quiet In The Western Front
    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Summary: All Quiet In The Western Front

    The horrors of World War I had many effects on the expendable soldiers and left them feeling traumatized, alienated, desensitized, and physically damaged.…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Analysis Of Erich Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 1709 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Analysis Of Erich Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

    “All Quiet in the Western Front” is a social commentary on how soldiers are effected emotionally and socially throughout the war and are conflicted on how to readjust to their lives after the Great War. Soldiers are conflicted by their character and do not know whether to pick back life up as a youth or as adults who have endured hard circumstances. The book does not focus on battles and it does not focus on a specific time frame, it rather evaluates what goes through the minds of a soldier. These men are literally being bombarded in the war front by explosives and in the home front by misinformed public who want to know the extremity of the war. Bystanders set High expectations for soldiers to be tough and to know how to behave in order to survive, yet those who did not participate in the Great War could only speculate what was going on in the soldier’s minds. The Great War damaged these soldiers physically and mentally, however certain elements gave the survivors the ability to pull through the war. The youth shifted its mentality and lost its innocence in the Great War. Therefore, Remarque did not focus his book on the combat that took place during the Great War, rather he presents social issues, which does not belittle his experience rather it presents a different view of the…

    • 1709 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary: All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Summary: All Quiet On The Western Front

    Throughout Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, vivid images of gruesome animal instincts and the innocent animals’ lives ending are illustrated for the reader repeatedly. Remarque indicates that for a soldier’s survival in battle they must cease sanity and rely solely on primitive instinct. This notion of animal instincts leads soldiers to be less like a human being with rational thoughts. The protagonist, Paul Bäumer, believes he is a “human animal,” and similarly, soldiers who survive multiple attacks think the same. Battle has wounded many, and throughout the novel the reader is given a chance…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Summary: All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Summary: All Quiet On The Western Front

    The negative effects of World War 1 are endless. Despite some of the positive outcomes, the book focuses on the main points of how the soldiers felt emotionally, physically, and mentally. When reading the book, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, one can further understand the true sadness, physical pain, and mental exhaustion that the German soldiers actually went through. This changes our perspective about the war because we can oversee our American bias and understand the pain on both sides. When Paul says, “We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through,” it shows how although there were hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting together, the pain and the suffering was…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary Of All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page

    Summary Of All Quiet On The Western Front

    In the story All Quiet On The Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque uses the motif of blood and death to display a theme of withering innocence, and how soldiers had to witness horrible events through humanity’s downfall. Erich uses animals to show crude human nature, the story describes to us how “the belly of one horse is ripped open, the guts trail out. He becomes tangled in them and falls, then he stands up again” (63 Remarque). This passage of gruesome death shows decaying innocence by humans forcing innocent creatures of the land, to fight for their own selfish needs and ways. Throughout the story, Paul is thrown again and again into life or death situations, “I grab for my gas-mask.…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 114 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis: All Quiet On The Western Front

    Contrary to other literary history works, “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Remarque Erich Maria is so unique because of the way it displays such a realistic view of war and the associated loss of humanity, innocence, and emotion that accompany it. Throughout this novel, Remarque proves his point that war is unnecessary, and dishonorable. The novel really emphasizes on the accumulating body count everyday, showing every aspect of how war is absolutely gruesome and such a waste of pure lives. Also, “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how the position of being in war can change a person dramatically preventing them from returning to their previous lives, and scarring them permanently.…

    • 114 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Novel by Erich Maria Remarque “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Novel by Erich Maria Remarque “All Quiet on the Western Front”

    The novel by Erich Maria Remarque “All Quiet on the Western Front” provides the reader with different views and representations of the war. Remarque, through the eyes of the narrator Paul Baumer and his imagery, exposes the reader to the gruesome horrors of the front. Remarque speaks about how the only worthwhile aspect of the war is comradeship and friendship, but this seems to lose hope as well. The war erased a whole generation and Remarque clearly identifies this in the novel.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Horror Of War In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Horror Of War In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

    Throughout history, war has been constantly evolving. Over time, it has taken a new less glorious form. World War One was one of the most devastating and transformative events in human history. In Erich Maria Remarque’s book, All Quiet on the Western Front, he depicts the horrors of “the great war” by showing the complete disregard for human life in modern warfare. This war modeled the way that any future war would be fought. It would shape human history by completely changing the game of warfare and people’s opinions of it. Remarque shows, from his point of view, the terrors that happen on a daily basis on the front lines, and away from it, of World War One. World War One changed the perception of war in a big way and opened the eyes of so many people to the horrors of modern warfare.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    All Quiet On The Western Front Comparative Analysis
    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages

    All Quiet On The Western Front Comparative Analysis

    The act of killing is deeply intimate. It is both incredibly personal and emotionally devastating for all involved. Two people become forever connected in a tragic way. In All Quiet on the Western Front and The Things They Carried, characters Paul Baumer and Tim O’Brien both struggle with guilt following killing. The way in which they fixate the men they kill is particularly fascinating. They enter into a fantasy in which they imagine themselves living out these men’s lives. Treating the enemy in such a way metaphorically brings these dead men back to life and allows Paul and Tim to escape the overbearing guilt of killing these people. Due to the large generational gap separating these two novels, Paul and Tim are…

    • 1469 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    All Quiet On the Western Front
    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages

    All Quiet On the Western Front

    Written by Erich Maria Remarque is a novel about young men who are fighting in the German army on the French front in World War I. The story expresses life in the war from the view point of Paul Baumer a young German soldier fighting for his life in the war. Throughout the novel, Remarque expresses vivid details based on his own experiences at war. “During World War I, Remarque was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. On June 12, 1917, he was transferred to the Western Front...”…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    All Quiet On The Western Front: An Analysis
    • 1402 Words
    • 6 Pages

    All Quiet On The Western Front: An Analysis

    War is a very controversial topic for many people. Depending on the person’s outlook on the war, it can be depicted as something good or bad. War brings destruction wherever it goes, whether it is on a place or the people, and it ultimately is inevitable. War also protects a country from having further destruction and keeps the people at home safe from any danger. As a person can see in many recordings of war, there are many comparisons and contrasts that are expressed through soldiers, veterans, and civilians. Some comparisons seen in many of the testimonies given by effected people are dehumanization, dislocation, and alienation; but they also have contrasts that can be seen through nationalism, technological advancements, and the coming home for many…

    • 1402 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In All Quiet On The Western Front
    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page

    Symbolism In All Quiet On The Western Front

    Throughout the novel the radio symbolizes a widespread social problem demonstrates people in general neglecting the need for quality human interaction. A perfect example of this problem is Werner. When in contact with loved ones at the beginning and end of the novel Werner was overall happier than when secluding himself from them. When requesting to travel home was brutally refused by Dr.Hauptmann, Werner shows signs of depression when thinking, “I cannot go home, he thinks. And I cannot stay.” (272). This also exposes Werner grieving the beating of Frederick, resulting in losing his best friend as well. Werner enters an even darker psychological state when refusing to write Jutta back, which is most likely a variable of his sickness during…

    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    All Quiet on the Western Front
    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front

    War can do many horrible things to its soldiers, but it can also save them from themselves. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque is a testament of Paul Bäumer. He and seven classmates enlist in World War I. They experience and witness unspeakable violence becoming soldiers. More violence than anyone should ever see. It corrupts most of the soldier’s minds because of the trauma that they have faced. Although war dehumanized many of the young men, war in many ways made Paul Bäumer more human.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    All Quiet On The Western Front Epigraph Analysis
    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages

    All Quiet On The Western Front Epigraph Analysis

    War is often viewed as one of the most dangerous and brutal events ever created. It utterly destroys the humanity and mental state of soldiers fighting in the war. In All Quiet on the Western Front, a world renowned war novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the epigraph states that this novel “will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” Staying true to this quote, Remarque tells of the horrors of World War I and fittingly describes the effects that war has on humans through the eyes of the protagonist, Paul Bäumer. In his epigraph Remarque says, “this book is to be neither an accusation, nor a confession, and least of all an adventure.” Except for a few notable exceptions,…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    All Quiet on the Western Front as an Anti-War Novel
    • 2090 Words
    • 9 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front as an Anti-War Novel

    All Quiet on the Western Front, written in 1929 by Erich Maria Remarque, is superficially the story of one soldiers’ journey in World War 1 and his eventual death. Beneath this, however, Remarque has composed a literary treasure which, above all, seeks to illustrate war as that which is engrained in the nucleus of humanity and through the hugely negative effects of war depicted, seeks to question humanities apparent advancement through its need to engage in such a futile exercise as war. Remarque’s Liberal Humanist ideology is given expression through the correlation between war and nature, thus emphasizing the innate position of war within man, the ultimate paradox contained within an advanced mankind engaging in primitive conflicts and the ironic search for an omniscient being derived from man’s reduction to the barest quest for survival. In addition through the examination of the negativities surrounding the social institutions and hierarchies set up in the absence of god, All Quiet on the Western Front becomes much more than an emotive and well constructed piece of historical realism. In All Quiet on the Western Front, the connections between war and the natural surroundings in which it is fought give rise to the position of war the collective psyche of mankind. The military jargon of the ‚the white puffs of smoke from the tracer bullets‛ is followed by the natural imagery of ‚the sun shining on them‛ in order to emphasize the apparent synchronization between war and nature. The colour imagery of white of the bullets and yellow of the sun, being light colours, connote the harmonious relationship between nature and war. Through the proximity of phrases describing both war and nature in an endearing fashion we are led to conclude that war and nature, or that which is primitive, are fundamentally linked. The gaian imagery ‚Earth, with your ridges and holes and hollows into which a man can throw himself , where a man can hide‛ is ironic as it takes a man-made…

    • 2090 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics