Socratic Seminar Questions

Socratic Seminar Notes

What role does friendship and camaraderie play in the novel? In what ways is it helpful/harmful to the characters in AQWF?

A. Page 274-275. Used as a coping tool for the loneliness and despair of war. Helpful because it gives the characters something to rely on throughout the battles, as a feeling of safety, comfort, and assurance.

B. Page 295. One of the things worth fighting for. After the deaths of all his friends, Paul admits in loneliness he has nothing else to lose. Helpful as it provides inspiration and confidence, but also really harmful as the loss of friendship and hurt mentally.

Discuss the effects of war on the soldier. Are the effects of war on the soldier worthwhile? If so, in what capacity? If not,

A. Page 273. Menace of death = war. Negative standpoint against war. Indirectly referring to war by referring to a “terrible” aspect of war.

B. Page 275. Little flames = soldiers. Views war from the standpoint of the soldier. Sympathizes the bad situations the soldiers are put through.

Is killing necessary for peace to occur?

A. It isn’t. Cold War, for example, was a 44 year span of political and social tension between two sides, the Eastern and Western Bloc, that were both heavily armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuke off. However, instead of any major regional battles, dominance was expressed through proxy wars, psychological warfare, propaganda, espionage, sports rivalries, and the Space Race.

B. Page 41. Kropp’s idea of a festival of generals beating each other could actually work efficiently, according to history. As shown in the Cold War, competitions other than killing is a possible way to show dominance and achieve peace without death.

C. Sun Tzu - “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Is war really “terrible” as the novel

Although Remarque is surely biased as a discharged and wounded veteran, war is still pretty awful. General William Tecumseh Sherman, criticized for his harsh policies in the Civil War - “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” Dwight Eisenhower - “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

Can and should war be prevented?

A. A war should always be prevented if it can, as they always prove to be disastrous and casualty-stricken. However, I don’t think it’s actually possible to prevent war in the first place. Raul Castro - “Preventing a war is tantamount to winning a war.”

B. Page 202-205. The soldiers review that though both the French and German wish to defend their homeland, yet they still attack each other. They say that the way is pretty useless for the middle class citizens who want no trouble between the countries, but they realize that there must be some people to whom the war is useful for. That being said, there are always one group of people who wish to assert military dominance through killing. It is simply in their nature, and is essentially irremovable. It is in humankind to fight for survival, to come out on top, and to be the best. Those aspects will always be in humans, and thus war can’t be completely