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All Quiet On The Western Front Rhetorical Analysis

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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

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