"He fell on a day that was... All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. "(p.296) He has been through such agony with his fellow comrades dying, and the horrors of the war, but yet he dies on the quietest day of the war. Paul has been in the war nearly from the beginning, and he has survived a host of battles on the front line even while seeing many of his fellow soldiers die. Throughout the novel, Paul slowly loses his hope that he will ever get out of the war alive, and he begins to think that even if he does survive, he will not fit back into the normal routine of his community back home.
I think the most obvious message is that the life of German soldiers was more horrifying than you might think. Most of the time you hear of heroic acts done by the winning side. Seldom are the sickening details of what the other people faced revealed. In addition to the main message, I believe the author wants the readers to realize that these soldiers not only endured physical pain but also emotional and psychological problems that they were left to deal with their entire life. That is, if they survived.
This resulted from the foot being left in water, which often accumulated at the bottom of the trenches, for long amounts of time and could sometimes cause the skin to fall right off the bone. Kemmerich, who is one of Paul’s classmates and comrade, has a similar situation happen to him in “All Quiet in the Western Front” when his foot became infected with gang green because of an artillery wound he suffered in battle which ultimately had to be amputated off. Kemmerich would lose the fight for his life. The conditions were so real and miserable that his fellow comrades tried to persuade him to give away his boots. It was then that Paul realized the true agonies of war—surviving the agony of war forces one to learn to disconnect oneself from emotions like grief, sympathy, and fear.
The intentions of Erich Maria Remarque were fueled by one simple goal in mind, “to tell a generation of men who, even though may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war” (foreward). This statement really sets the tone for All Quiet on the Western Front and how a whole generation of men who did survive the War, returned home, but their youthful attitudes died with their fallen brothers. The brutality of trench and chemical warfare was enough to kill millions of men, however million’s more were destroyed by the psychological aftermath from fighting in the first World War. This story was narrated through Paul and his understanding of how the war ruined a soldier’s memories of home, their relationships with their families, and just simply
In All Quiet on The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque paints a vivid picture of what life was like on the front lines in World War One, and the problems that arose in soldiers because of the traumatizing time spent there. In no part of the book are the issues that the soldiers face more evident than when Paul returns back to his home while he is on leave. His time at home is uncomfortable and depressing, for he discovers that the war has taken his youth and his ability to live out the rest of his life normally. When Paul goes back to his hometown on leave, he is miserable and surrounded by ignorant citizens who have no idea what life on the front lines is like. Paul is sacrificing his life daily for these people, yet they cannot sympathize with anything he is going through.
Remarque uses one of the earlier scenes of the innocent dying horses as a symbol of the loss of innocent young men who were torn away from their families. ‘The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and its guts are trailing out’ (pg 45). Baumer describes the scene of the dying screaming horses in pain and fear, ‘we can stand a lot, but this brings us out in a cold sweat’ (pg 45). Detering who was a farmer back home states ‘what have they done to deserve that’ (pg 45) and ‘it is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war’ (pg 45). When they started to run out of the older boys, they started bringing in younger and younger recruits.
The men and the dead bodies spread around many diseases, trench foot was especially common among diseases that were caused by standing in muddy and water filled trenches. Paul is the main character in All Quiet on the Western Front. Him and his friends all enlisted in the army when they were 19. When they got to the trenches they met a man named Kat who was much older then them and who quickly became close friends with Paul. Even thought some soldiers survived the shellings and gas, they were still destroyed by the war.
Wilfred Owen had a good education as well, but (unlike Rupert Brooke) he went to war, and saw what it was it was really like, the bad conditions, the lack of food and meaningless deaths, Wilfred Owen realised that the war was cold and cruel, not like people imagined it. This poem is very negative, and quite sad, unlike ' The Soldier' it expresses the tormented thoughts and recollections of a teenage soldier in the 1st World War, who has lost his limbs in battle and is now confined, utterly helpless, to a wheelchair. I think Wilfred wanted people to realise that the war was not as glorious and victorious as people thought, there were so many men whose lives were thrown away even if they did physically survive it.. Unfortunately Wilfred Owen died on the 4th of November 1918, before the end of the war. To conclude, these two poems are different in many ways (attitude, mood, tone, ect..) One was to encourage the people to fight for their country and go to war, one was to make people see that the war destroyed many men's lives, it had no mercy.
Groundbreaking Thinkers like you are charming, enthusiastic persons. You really bubble over with energy and like to take centre stage. You love variety both professionally and privately. You tackle changes consistently with your optimism and firm belief in your own abilities; you are always on the look-out for improvement possibilities. Your excellent communication skills are of great advantage to you.
Analysis: War Photographer (Carol Ann Duffy) Through her poem ‘War Photographer’, Carol Ann Duffy casts a harsh light on the destruction and bloodshed which results from war and how apathetic and uncaring the rest of the world, who is not directly affected by it, is. The poem starts with a description of the war photographer standing alone in his dark room. All the photos that he had taken of the war are contained within the rolls which are organized into neat rows, making him feel like a priest who is about to lead a mass funeral. He thinks of all the places he has been to, places which had been torn apart by war, and remembering all the bloodshed he has witnessed he feels that everything has to in the end die and return to the earth. He then carries on with his works, but the ironical fact is that he who wasn’t afraid while amidst gunfire and death, now trembles in the safety and sanctuary of his home in Rural England, where the most troubling thing is the constantly changing weather and where he does not have to worry about the ground blowing up beneath his feet.