Horror Through Words Society often masks the true horrors of war in order to promote patriotism. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque captures the reality of war through the horrific imagery, which he portrays through similes. The narrator, nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer, and his comrades look over the trenches to witness horse suffering in no man’s land. Prior to ending the horse’s misery, the soldiers see the last one “[prop] itself on its forelegs and [drag] itself round in a circle like a merry-go-round” (Remarque 64). Remarque compares the dying horse to a merry-go-round to create situational irony through imagery. Associated with happiness and nostalgia, merry-go-rounds portray purity as they are ironically compared to a tortured
War causes a loss of innocence and brings a soldier further away from their home life that they once loved as a child. In the book “All Quiet on the Western Front” the author Erich Remarque uses symbols to prove that this is how soldiers lives change after they return from war. Remarque uses the symbols of potato pancakes, horses and the earth to exhibit that war takes away the feeling of comfort that was once associated with home, while bringing on new responsibilities and a loss of innocence.
Maybe this would open the eyes about the war in Iraq, even if you ask people on the street they usually say that the war was wrong. It really surprised me that he won the next election, at maybe he shouldn't have, and he actually cheated like the movie says he does. A lot of these clips that Michael shows in his movie, had been shown in the news and I recognized some of them, and you have to admit that Bushes behavior has been very weird. Even though some people say that this is propaganda, all lies and is stupid just doesn't want to see the facts. A lot of these things are true, and can anyone actually stand up and tell me why a war where hundreds of thousand people have died? Was it to force democracy down on a middle eastern country, how
War is a hellish battleground where many lives are taken. In war there is constantly images and events that happen which can change a soldier’s life forever. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front Remarque uses the symbols of boots, butterflies and horses to advance the main theme in the novel, that war takes young men’s innocence away.
In war, both violence and fear revokes a soldier’s humanity. These elements of war cause a person to shut down their emotional instincts, which causes the soldiers to mature rapidly by taking innocence along with joy and happiness in life. Through the experiences that the soldiers encounter, their humanity is compromised. Thus, as war strips soldiers of their innocence, they start to become disconnected from themselves and others. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the negative effects war has on a soldier’s humanity, through his use of Paul’s books and the potato pancakes by revealing the soldiers loss of emotion that causes them to become detached from society. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. Likewise the potato pancakes reveal Paul’s emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.
‘‘Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I killed. But now, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet of you rifle: now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, Comrade. Why do we always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying agony- Forgive me comrade how could you be my enemy?”’ In this quote Paul Baumer, the protagonist realizes
In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.
Paul uses many tactics throughout his imprisonment in order to keep some control over his and Annie's alliance. One effective method he uses is flattery, complimenting Annie in order to keep her happy and her mood stable. His use of this move is demonstrated on page 60 in the novel, when he calls Annie his favorite nurse. He uses it again on page 107, telling Annie that she could not be old enough to remember the chapter plays, hinting at how she looks way younger than she actually is. Paul uses this strategy to lighten Annie's mood and keep her happy, which is vital to him because Annie can become very destructive and impatient when angry, consequently being the main source of Paul's pain throughout the book. In addition to flattery, Paul
Imagine being so scared to die, that you must kill and attack another to survive. Paul, from All Quiet on the Western Front, was caught in this situation, during his time in war. He had been hiding in a trench one day, waiting for a skirmish to cease. A French soldier leapt into the trench that Paul was hiding in, and out of fear Paul immediately began to stab him. Paul was so petrified that he did not even realize what he had done, until he felt the blood on his hands. Paul stayed in the trench as he reflected on his actions, melancholy. In, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, the author created a depressing mood throughout the passage, with the use of gory, sorrowful diction and imagery. This causes readers to feel very
In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque, starting with the epigraph of the book, defaces the didactic tips that the war burdens Bäumer with, "This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war" (1). A variety of books are written about wars, aggression, and the vast majority of them are full of patriotic pathos and romantic passages. As the novel's raconteur and protagonist, Bäumer is the focal figure in All Quiet on the Western Front and fills in as the mouthpiece for Remarque's reflections about war. All through the novel, Bäumer's internal identity is stood out from the way the war drives him to act and feel. His recollections of the time before the war demonstrate that he was at one time an altogether different man from the miserable fighter who now portrays the novel. Bäumer is a caring and naive schoolboy; before the war, he adored his family and composed poetry. Witnessing the awfulness of the war and the tension it instigates, Bäumer, as different warriors, figures out how to separate his psyche from his sentiments, keeping his feelings under control with a specific end goal to save his rational soundness and survive. With his epigraph, Remarque immediately separates
In Black Hawk's Surrender Speech in 1832, Black Hawk portrays many forms of being a courageous Indian who faced many obstacles, but was always true to his nation. He portrays this by utilizing rhetorical devices and associating to the reader through pathos.
Leper, while recounting the events that lead up to Phineas’s fall from the tree, describes the whole ordeal with striking imagery. The reader can clearly visualize exactly what he saw -- how sunbeams graced Gene and Phineas’s dark silhouettes as they stood on the limb, and the black, solid mass that was the tree itself. Enhanced with similes such as “black as death” and “like golden machine-gun fire”, the whole passage really comes to life.
“I think it [war] is more of a kind of fever. No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn’t want the war, the others say the same thing- and yet half the world is in it all the same. (206)” Erich Remarque describes how war is an odd sort of happening through Albert Kropp, one of the most intelligent young men of Paul Bäumer’s company. Remarque, himself a German World War 1 veteran, uses the characters of Paul’s company to channel his frustrations from his experiences during the war. The vivid imagery used to describe bombardments and life at the front allows the reader to visualize the reality of warfare. It’s bloody, messy, and repulsive. Extreme detail aids Remarque in exposing the atrocities of war, and its repercussions. All Quiet on the Western Front focuses on an anti-war theme, and how war itself has no purpose other than to be savage and wasteful.
I do not know how to start this letter, how abandoned and alone I feel not seeing the sight of your face every day. It is not what I imagined when hearing the stories of those back home. Brainwashed by propaganda, to believe that war is honourable. I must call to mind to value each moment as it comes. The more time spent here is less time being left underfoot from the charging boots. Only at night, the screeching of shells is heard as they fall overhead. We are heading over top tomorrow, oh how my body trembles just the thought of it. My men and I currently sit by candlelight reading the bible in hopes to clear the mind for the task ahead. Showing looks of uncertainty. Our minds are in knots, clouded by the unknown as to whether or not we will make it through. We received new recruit that will be joining us tomorrow. They are oblivious as to what is to come, clueless to the horrific events that they will be faced with. Leaving behind scars. After a restless night in vicious gale force winds and descending rainfall. I am now faced with expanding sludge becoming harder to trudge, boots become unwearable. Each day feels endless like war is a never-ending cycle.
Leadership, authority, and power leading to corruption has been a controversial topic for many years. Lord Acton articulated his belief by saying “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When it comes to the war, Erich Maria Remarque, a First World War veteran himself, clearly agrees with this statement, as shown by his elegantly written novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque uses characters such as corporal Himmelstoss, Kantorek, and the Kaiser as a mechanism to exemplify the unfortunate truth that power corrupts. As a result of Remarque’s development of these leaders, readers are brought to the conclusion that authority’s ignorance, hypocrisy, and animalistic ways compel the helpless soldiers into unwillingly fighting each other to death.
Steve stared down at the letter from Bucky with a mixture of humor and loneliness. He had only been gone two weeks for training and already he had written Steve. It must have been the first thing he did after he got settled in. That really wasn’t all that unusual, it was as much to make sure Steve didn’t run off and do something stupid as it was to keep in touch with his best friend. They were supposed to be there together, training together, fighting together, just as they always had. However, the government didn’t seem to think that Steve was fit to fight for his country. Steve disagreed.