Although most war novels are filled with patriotism and honor, Remarque’s instead focuses on the brutality and senselessness of war. The main character, Paul Baumer, serves in the German Army during WWI. The novel shows his struggles throughout the war and it seems that Baumer resembles Remarque and his own struggles of war. In the novel, Baumer and his comrades endure a full scale war. The novel shoes the misery of war and the everlasting effects it has on the soldiers; even Baumer cannot escape those circumstances.
Which sets the book of to a strong start, as the declaration was passionately written during the war. Siegfried Sassoon used repetition through his declaration , making sure that he feels strongly against war. During the declaration Sassoon explains the horrors if war in many different ways. He repeats the word “suffering” throughout the declaration to put emphasis on what the war is really like for the soldiers that are fighting for our country. He also talks strongly about how the sufferings are being “prolonged” as he tired of witnessing men “being sacrificed” to this awful war.
He said his main concern was ‘war and the pity of war’ He felt it was his responsibility as a poet to tell the truth and bring to light to atrocities of modern warfare, in a way others could or would not. Once he had properly experienced war his poetry became a form of education, he wanted to expose the belief war was good and noble and prove wrong the propaganda that bombarded Britain. No knowledge, imagination or military training could properly prepare Owen for the reality of war and the suffering of front line experience it brought along with it. Within twelve days of arriving in France the ‘easy-going’ chatter of his letters turned to a ‘cry of anguish’. ‘The Sentry’ was written by Owen when he was receiving treatment at Craiglockhart in Edinburgh in 1917, finished in September later that year whilst in France.
War is never a pretty thing. We’re separated by the ones we love, lose the ones we care about, and forget who we were before it all began. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, it proves just that when a group of soldier’s lives are completely turned around due to the effects of war. The narrator and protagonist of the book Paul Baumer, persuaded by his schoolmaster Kantorek, volunteers for the war at the tender age of nineteen with friends Kropp, Muller and Leer, hoping to be considered courageous once he joins the war. Kantorek often calls them the iron youth because he describes their efforts as brave and heroic.
The essay “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk,” is marked by a clear narrative description of what war is truly like and gives the reader a strong sense of perspective. In the essay, “Ambush,” O’Brien recounts the story in first person, almost in a historical method of storytelling by using the word “I”. Part of the reason for this difference is this essay’s audience, O’Brien’s daughter Kathleen. Also, “Ambush” very much differs from “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk.” O’Brien does not describe the harsh living conditions the soldiers are living in and tries to be clinical about it. The refrains of “Ambush,” such as “he was a short, slender man of about twenty,” are constantly adding to the idea of the storytelling, unlike “Why Soldiers Won’t Talk,” which seems
In the poem “Dulce et Decorum est” the poet writes about soldiers in the battle field and all the grueling things about war. I feel the meaning of this poem is to give an idea and insight to the reader of how war is very gruesome and just down right awful with no sugar coating. In both of these poems the writers use irony and similes to help get the reader to understand the point they are making. The first comparison about the two poems is the use of irony. In “Rite of passage” the line “short men, men in first grade” the writer is calling the young boys men.
Even more impactful to Paul’s experience, perhaps in a negative way, are Paul’s journeys home during the war. Throughout the novel Paul’s longing to return home dominates much of the novel’s narration. Paul consistently yearns for the years and experiences of adolescence that precede his experiences in the war, but when he encounters them both on leave and as a result of his injury, he rejects them. He quickly recognizes that “the world of our parents [is] a thing incomprehensible to us” (122). Home for Paul, and his romantic notions of it, is destroyed when he recognizes his own incompatibility with society due to his experiences in war.
As a reader one cannot help but get a mental picture of the terrible war condition as well as feel deep compassion for the soldier. The image of the suffering solder “guttering, chocking and drowning” (16) is disturbing but effective in grabbing the reader’s attention and is meant to wake them
Gareth Parker 31/01/2013 Compare contrasting attitudes to war through examining the work of two or three poets from your war poetry anthology. The First World War was portrayed as a celebrated and plausible cause, fighting the war for your country was deemed as the duty of any capable man. Going into battle was the highest honour a man could have; men were overwhelmed with the idea of being able to fight for their country’s futures. Women would at first, try anything they could to stop their husbands and sons from risking their lives by signing up for the war. At this time some poetry was written to encourage men to go and fight, poets like Jessie Pope who wrote war poetry enforced this view although other poets were had a different view of the fighting, such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
Owen comments on how the soldiers are living in trench life. He explains how the soldiers are “coughing like hags”. Hags are old women have a really bad cough because they chain smoke so this links in with the soldiers because they are breathing in the smoke which has been dilluted into the air which is causing breathing difficulties. The quotations involved makes it very clear that the war has demolished the soldiers lifes, and that they are so weak and unfit which Owen has compared them to ‘old beggars’. The irony results in effecting the readers perspective on the poem as it makes it memerable and helps the whole point of the poem.