Irony is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. We see this a tremendous amount in the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel is a story based on one man, named Paul Baumer’s time during World War I. Paul joined the German army with his friends from school. The way Remarque portrays irony is perfect, as soon as you read it you sense that irony is being used. Irony is an important part in this story because it shows how Paul is battling himself, others and everything around him during the war.
The U-boat then surfaced and machine-gunned 300 Canadian survivors who included nurses and the wounded. The brigadier-general tells this story to motivate the Canadian battalion prior to the offensive so that they will avenge their murdered comrades. The allies attack The narrator's ears start to bleed from the force of explosions The Germans come running out screaming for mercy, trying to surrender - the allies mow them down The narrator is shot in the foot which has cut an artery, he is happy he is wounded as he can go home now The narrator goes looking for a dead means corpse so he can take his water bottle, he finds Broadbent in a nearby shell hole, his leg hangs by a small strip of skin, Broadbent dies shortly after While waiting for the hospital ship to arrive and take the Narrator home, he talks with an orderly who soon reveals that the story about the Llandovery Castle was a lie and that when the ship was sunk it was carrying supplies and war material and was in actual fact not a “hospital ship” that was carrying 300 wounded. The narrator realises that the battalion was lied to by the brigadier
He then assembles a team of six men from his outfit, along with a soldier fluent in French and German. With virtually no other information regarding Ryan’s location, the men set out to the town of Neuville. This area is, not unexpectedly, in the throes of battle, and one of Miller’s men is wounded. As there is no safe way to get medical aid, the man dies, setting up the beginnings of dispute among the team. With one fatality already having occurred, the men question the mission’s goal of saving a single soldier.
Even though we see glimpses of empathy and humanity the reader is still engaged in how war changes, dehumanising and desensitizing the soldiers. Generals Die in Bed opens up a world to men that makes them feel small and weak, making them turn into animals. This is what makes them dehumanize each other and the enemy. “Some of us kick at the prostrate body as we pass it. It quivers a little with each kick.”P145 chapter 9.
‘Dulce et Decorum est’ by Wifred Owen Katriona Downie Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a magnificent, and horrific, description of a gas attack suffered by a group of soldiers in France in World War 1. One of his friends in his group is unable to get his helmet on in time and suffers horribly that Owen had to witness. This was an image he found extremely difficult to get out his head and kept coming back to him in his reoccurring nightmares. He writes this poem from the trenches while serving in war. Through his rhythms, dramatic description, and raw images, Owen seeks to convince that the horror of war far outweighs the patriotic clichés of those who glamorize war and increases my understanding of war and the horrors that come with it.
Generals Die in Bed Essay In the Anti War Novel, Generals Die in Bed, Charles Yale Harrison conveys the horror of war by using techniques to describe the conditions in which they live. Harrison also uses them to tell the reader that the people who you fight in war aren’t always the only enemy. Three examples of this would be using lots of minor character, using an anonymous first person narrator, and the emotion of anger towards those who from positions of power send others to war: Using lots of minor characters in the novel allows Harrison to get across that in war, no one can develop themselves. Most of the soldiers who fought in the trenches were young men who had joined for the glory and in the end found that there was none to be
There is nothing good about war, especially for soldiers, civilians and families. People feel the effects long after the war is over, because of the traumatic experiences. The worst acts of dehumanization during wars are the ill-treatment of the soldiers in World War One, the Holocaust in World War Two and the child soldiers of today. World War One was the deadliest conflict in human history with over 35 million military and civilian casualties. The soldiers bared the worst suffering through their experiences living in the trenches.
The treaty was quite unpopular, not only with the Germans, but also with the Big Three. Even at the time, the peace-makers left the conference feeling that they had failed to make a treaty that would keep the peace and satisfy everybody. The historians have ever since blamed the Treaty of Versailles for helping the Second World War. One of the Big Three, David Lloyd George of Great Britain had two views on how Germany should be treated. He was quite satisfied with the treaty.
Otto Von Bismarck (Hitler’s hero).in 1871 Otto Von Bismarck established Germany as a country by winning the Franco Prussian war. And doing that created Pan German nationalism. Another pan Germanic idol was Martin Luther, he protested against catholic churches as he thought they were flawed and wrong due to indulgencies (buying your way into heaven), he strongly expressed his anti-Catholic views by hammering his 95 thesis (problems with the Catholic church) to the door of a church. This began the protestant reformation. The Volk were also very fond of Beethoven, a German composer, however Hitler’s favourite composer was Richard Wagner and he used his music in death camps right before they would be killed.
In Barker’s ‘Regeneration’, characters such as Burns are traumatised by their experiences of war, as he is traumatised by being launched head first onto a German corpse, “... he’d had time to realise that what filled his nose and mouth was decomposing human flesh. Now whenever he tried to eat, the taste and smell recurred”. The use of words such as ‘decomposing’ and ‘flesh’ show the reader how World War 1 is horrific, as the soldiers are physically scarred by witnessing suffering and death. Similarly, the narrator in ‘To the