Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.
We are known with the quote “War is hell”, but how do we truly know the atmosphere is such location. How do we, the readers without any involvement in what so ever could we relate to such strong statement. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque guides through the eyes of the Paul Baumer and his gang having to live the truth of world war one. Paul and his soldiers friends are label throughout the book the ‘’lost generation’’.The generation that was only introduced to the ‘’Great War’’.The entering of the war has postponed their civilians lives due to war effort resulting no aftermath progression.
Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men.
Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, follows the life of a German Soldier, Paul Baumer, serving in the trenches in France during World War I. This novel is told from Baumer’s perspective and depicts the horrors of living in his shoes during this time. Paul and several other young soldiers volunteered for the war after their instructor in school, Kantorek and other authority figures back home filled their heads with glorious ideas about the war. Very quickly, he discovers the reality- gas attacks, fatal illness, starvation, rat infestations, and bloody trenches. This dehumanizing war affects Paul and the soldiers who fought in it by destroying their physical and emotional well being, changing their views on the meaning of life and death, obliterating their sense of nationalism by betrayal, and
The book All Quiet on the Western Front takes place during World War I. The author, Erich Maria Remarque, describes how dehumanizing war can be for soldiers who give their life to serve their country and protect it. Remarque specifically describes the hardships of a German soldier Paul during the war. Through Remarque’s story we learn that war affects relationships, thought processes, natural instincts and many more functions of a soldier. We learn over the course of this book that all soldiers change through war.
World War I was one of the most barbaric and horrendous events that impacted world history. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich M. Remarque drives home this brutality through his main character. The theme brutality and carnage is displayed through the presence of death, violence, and the guilt the soldiers must carry within them.
Erich Maria Remarque’s classic account of misery, woe, and war overrides the plot of All Quiet on the Western Front, recreating the devastation and emotional dismemberment of German soldier, Paul Baumer, and his childhood acquaintances. Baumer is violently ripped through a symbolically eternal dispute between opposing nations; however the entirety of the novel is seen through Remarque’s eyes. As a vessel for propaganda and persuasion, Remarque attaches parasitic personalities, desolate descriptions, and vivid verbs to convey desperate times on The Western Front. Without Remarque’s vocabulary and literary devices, the novel would be stripped of its ability to evoke passionate emotions in the reader.
All Quiet on The Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel composed after World War One to convey the experiences of German soldiers during this horrific time of fighting. He brought to light many important issues that occur during wars. In this book, three horrors of war that had the largest impact were the lack of sanitation in the trenches, the loss of comrades, and the shock that came from unexpected and ongoing shelling.
The book cover of, All Quiet on The Western Front, quotes to be ‘’the greatest war novel of all time’’. The author, Erich Remarque, experiencing war himself; uses the protagonist, Paul Baumer, to express his own background and horrors of World War One. With this, it alternates between his vividly dying memories of the times before the war and the nightmares of trench warfare; although a first person narrative. Erich served in combat during WW1 in Germany and was wounded five times. The last injury was very severe and kept him out of the war. He published his book in 1929. Although his books are fictionally written; they are inspired by his experience through the mind of a different character like Baumer rather than his own. Being in the mind
War is a harsh reality that is inflicted upon the unwilling through the “need” of it’s predecessors and those whom wish it. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19 year old Paul and his friends in the “Second Company”. Even though they are just out of school age, they have already seen things that many could not bear to even think about. Eventually, all of his friends die, and even Paul too, dies. Remarque uses diction and syntax as literary devices to express his anti-war theme, or lesson.
World War II was a devastating war with over 18 million casualties accounted for not even including famine and diseases. All Quiet on the Western Front follows a group of germanic recruits and their pathway throughout the way they saw the tragedy of the war. In the classic novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses symbolism to show camaraderie, a loss of innocence, and how life can be impacted in monumental ways when people choose to not back down when an evil force awakens.
Erich Maria Remarque was a man who had lived through the terrors of war, serving since he was eighteen. His first-hand experience shines through the text in his famous war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, which tells the life of young Paul Bäumer as he serves during World War 1. The book was, and still is, praised to be universal. The blatant show of brutality, and the characters’ questioning of politics and their own self often reaches into the hearts of the readers, regardless of who or where they are.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a story, in which it allows people to know the true horrors of war. Throughout the story and in Erich Maria Remarque’s writing he uses many literary devices to emphasize what he experienced and the emotions he felt. The devices that he used are used in order to help the readers understand his experience and emphasize the theme of his war novel. Throughout this essay, I will show you a few of the literary devices used within the novel that emphasized the theme, the brutality of war. Within this essay you will learn about imagery, metaphors, and symbolism. These are all devices that are vital in portraying the overall theme of the brutality of war, in All Quiet on the Western Front.
"All Quiet on the Western Front" is a war novel by Erich Maria Remarque that reveals the ways in which war is not glorious, and the ways in which destroys a soldier 's happiness, innocence, and youthfulness. In addition, it uses imagery and characterization to describe some of the hardships the soldiers face in the trenches and at the front. Likewise, "Suicide in the Trenches" is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon that glosses over these topics as well, in the form of a poem. While both Remarque 's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Sassoon 's "Suicide in the Trenches" portray war as a destroyer of innocence and youthfulness, Remarque 's use of characterization to illustrate the theme is more effective than Sassoon 's use of imagery and word play, because it is more
The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque depicts one protagonist, Paul, as he undergoes a psychological transformation. Paul plays a role as a soldier fighting in World War I. His experiences during the war are not episodes the average person would simply experience. Alternatively, his experiences allow him to develop into a more sophisticated individual. Remarque illustrates these metamorphic experiences to expose his theme of the loss of not only people’s lives but also innocence and tranquility that occurs in war.