Effects of War Tim O’Brien wrote the short story “Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” to help people apprehend what it was like to be in the war. Tim wanted his readers to understand how reclusive war was for the soldiers, they would sometimes envision being in a different location. He also wanted them to grasp how terrifying war was, they were always terrified of being heard. The last idea Tim wanted his readers to apprehend was how intense the war was.
In Erich Maria Remarque’s, “All Quiet on the Western Front” the soldiers face fear, hardships, love, trust, and death together during World War 1. The question is, why? All soldiers were clueless to the reason why they had to leave their families, friends, and loved ones, only to return home to suffer from the mental and physical pain afterward. The novel focuses on Paul Baumer who enlists in the German army and experiences the horrors of war while trying to survive in the trenches. “War Some More” by Sandra Osborne connects well with the novel in the sense that war is brutal and brings forth hatred without a solid explanation as to why.
War habitually desensitizes and numbs the fighting soldiers due to the harsh, crippling events they have witnessed. War creates a feeling of endless hopelessness felt by the comrades during the war. In “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Erich Maria Remarque exposes the change of characterization of Paul Baumer from an innocent boy transformed by the monstrosities of war into a desensitized soldier by repeating the pattern of soldiers going to the front, being at the front, and then being away from the front to expose the personal destruction caused by it. On the way to the front, the comrades are experiencing rising anxiety and intimidating tension from the realization of the unavoidability death on the frontline.
Although these novels focus on a false reality of wars, Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front illustrates Bäumer’s horrifying experiences that he and his regiment, the Second Company, faces throughout the front lines of World War I, along with the physical and emotional
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel about Paul, a young German man who fights for the army on the French front in World War I. Paul and his classmates joined the German army after listening to the patriotic speeches of their teacher. After experiencing brutal training at the hands of the cruel Corporal Himmelstoss and brutality of life on the French front, Paul and his comrades have realized that the ideals of patriotism for which they enlisted are clichés. As a result, Paul and his friends no longer believe that war is glorious and they live in constant fear of death. "The abyss" to which Bäumer fears his thoughts will lead is the end of the World War I which has destroyed the lives of his comrades and his life predicated on a misconstrue
These are all devices that are vital in portraying the overall theme of the brutality of war, in All Quiet on the Western Front. One of the main literary devices used in All Quiet on the Western Front is imagery. An example of this is when Detering, Paul and, his friends become pale and sick at hearing
In the first stanza we can see that the figure is “Groping along the tunnel, step by step” and in the third stanza we get the line “alone he staggered on…” These phrases point out the physical and physiological detachment, well known effects of intendance combat. Lastly I will be analyzing the novel All Quiet on the Western Front to look for a dehumanizing theme in the novel. Throughout the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the young soldiers are affected by the war. Throughout the young soldiers time on the front, they are dehumanized and the also develop an animal instinct while they are completely abandoning their emotions and
“War is hell” was said by General William Tecumseh Sherman, there is no expression quite as short that captures the image of war, and he said this quote as he was on a mission to raze the South to the ground. At the beginning of the book Paul is a hopeful soldier. It will end only as what you would expect of watching all of your friends die and spending years at the front. Erich Maria Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front to show us the horrors of war, and in vain to teach us lesson, that we finally realized by WWII. The story follows the life of a 19 year old schoolboy pressed into service by his teacher, trained in 10 weeks in a barracks, then learns the reality of war through experience.
Impressions on the novel The novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, portrays a very realistic life of a soldier during WWI. One of the many images that made an impression was when Paul’s friend Kemmerich died while crying. This left a big impression because Kemmerich was not much older than any of the seniors in high school.
E. Housman: This poem shows how pressured into being ‘a man’ and fighting for their country was forced into the minds of many youth which had them signing up for the mass slaughtering that was the first world war, it tells of how they were too young, too naive to know better. It seems almost as though this song is something mourning the loss of not only many many lives, but the loss of youth. That in killing and watching your comrades be killed, you lose the wide-eyed naivety that you once had, that twinkle in one’s eye when the concept of protecting your loved ones and dying a hero of war would cause. The poem is short, with only two stanzas consisting of rather uniforme lines, the pace seems to change upon re-reading the poem as you put your own meaning and interpretation on the words. The poem plays on the empathy and plucks the heartstrings of the reader, saving the most impactful line until
It says, man, you got wax in your ears. It says, poor bastard, you 'll never know—wrong frequency—you don 't even want to hear this. Then they salute the fucker and walk away, because certain stories you don 't ever tell,” (O’Brien 56) as a result of their loss of sanity and rational state of mind. The experience of the soldiers in “How to Tell a True War Story” illustrates an example of how events can affect the psyche and lead to long-term concerns of
Present throughout the book is the theme of disillusionment. In the school, they’ve been told by their schoolmasters and parents that unless they join the war, they would remain cowards. They see propaganda after propaganda, all alluding towards the glory of battle and warfare. Out on the front, they realize that nothing was further from the truth. Their dreams of being heroes shattered, like when they compare themselves to the soldier on a poster in chapter 7.
He is excited to join and to serve his country, little did he know that war is an aberration. His whole world turns upside down; experiencing grief, and terror. This caused him to become very bewildered. "The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a story told by a soldier named Paul Bäumer about his experiences during World War I. The war lasted from 1914 to 1918 affecting a whole generation of young men across the world. There was so much death during the WWI that sometimes families would lose more than one soldier. Paul describes how horrendous death was in the book. This showed readers the true insight of war at the time.
Erich Maria Remarque showed disillusionment in very many different ways in his book that he wrote ¨All Quiet On The Western Front. ¨ The theme of ¨All Quiet On The Western Front¨ is to never let your emotions get to you when you need to power through things and need to be strong at the moment. Paul never let his emotions get to him throughout the story. Besides at one point when he went home and saw his mother so sick she was stuck in bed, and she left all the good food that they had for when Paul came back even though Paul knew his mother and sister needed the food more than him.