Jünger And Haber: A Literary Analysis

Throughout the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and several other war texts, there are a number of themes that can be related to them all. In the book, the character named Paul Baumer writes, in first person, about his experience through war. He sees and feels so many things, but the most important one of all is the feeling he gets when he is with his comrades, his friends. In sight of this, Paul, and other characters, give all their loyalty to the people they are close to. In other specific war pieces, including the film War Horse and “Gregory,” a short story, the characters also experience this life giving idea of comradeship and loyalty. In war, a man’s loyalty to his comrades never alters.

In “A Mystery of Heroism” he gives the readers the perspective of what being in the war is like. Some people assume that being in the war means that they always have a plan,

War is a horrible and devastating event that hurts many people in many ways. This something many people have to cope with. Authors are among those who have to cope with war as well. Many people cope different ways but authors cope by protesting war. To do this authors use imagery, irony, and structure.

The rise of World War I caused millions of casualties and was yet another demonstration of how supposedly civilized nations could be led into a chaotic war of power over lands and people. Since the beginning of civilization, war has been the way of the world. However, with major advances in technology, this idea of war has since become mechanized and deadlier. There is no doubt that the powerful men who lead wars often don’t care to think of nitty gritty of war, to them, rather, it’s a matter of power and legacy. In Remarque’s novel, the particular story of Paul and his comrades is a perfect example of how a generation can be used and manipulated to drive the agenda of power- hungry men. Through Remarque’s own personal experience and unparalleled writing ability, this novel presents many first-hand experiences into the living conditions of soldiers and peoples.

This essay will try to answer the question: should Ernst Junger’s book “Storm of Steel” narrative describing his personal experiences during his service in German Army on Western Front of WW1 be consider anti or pro war?

There is no doubt that when war occurs, every single human being is affected by it even if it is just a little. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of teenage men, who also appear to by classmates, are in the German army of World War I because they have chosen to leave their adolescence at home and school for grown up work at the army. Throughout this fictional novel, they face many challenges that result in them not seeing each other ever again because of death. War affects individuals by leaving behind necessities such as education or jobs, not being able to watch over others such as their health, and injuries that soldiers receive while they are at war.

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.

War is often misinterpreted as an exciting occurrence filled with glory and acts of terrific heroism. In reality, it is brutal and serves as an effective simulation of hell. Timothy Findley's The Wars depicts an inhumane world where individuals are taken out of their elements and are forced to struggle to hold onto their humanity amidst the horrors. The lack of rules in war targets and destroys every aspect of what it means to be human. It heavily interferes with one's motivations, desires and purpose of living. The war also targets one's innocence and brings about suffering both physically and mentally.

The psychologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Because every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.” He initially stated this when he was corresponding with Albert Einstein via letter. This quote is also a great explanation of the events that take place during war that people chose to not recognise. War is terrible, and no matter how hard we try, nothing will change that. Erich Maria Remarque shows us that soldiers have endured dreadfully throughout World War I in his book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The character in the book, Paul Baumer, endures through the tragedies of war with some of his old schoolmates as well as new comrades that he meets along the way. They survive through all of the tragedies together, but in the end, the war made them lose their friendships as well as their lives. The reality is that war comes with consequences while it destroys people, and there is nothing that will ever be able to change that. The book “All Quiet on the Western Front” shows how war comes destroys people's lives with its consequences through three of its themes: the importance of comradery, the loss of innocence, and the horrors and brutality of war.

The glorified act of war is often staged in historical literature by idolizing the soldiers who partake in the event. Soldiers are made to seem intrepid, ruthless and muscular, each with a ceaseless desire to fight valiantly for their countries. Timothy Findley and Kurt Vonnegut discard this typical hero archetype in their anti-war novels by portraying the soldiers who fight in the war as the men they are, not as the templates of heroes they are expected to fit, in furtherance of strengthening their anti-war stances. Findley and Vonnegut illustrate their protagonists as a tragic hero and an anti-hero, respectively, in order to juxtapose the atrocities of war with the flawed humanness of man and to challenge the stereotypical image of a

Storm of Steel provides a memoir of the savagery and periods of beauty that Ernst Jünger’s experienced while serving the German army during the First World War. Though the account does not take a clear stand, it lacks any embedded emotional effects or horrors of the Great War that left so few soldiers who survived unaffected. Jünger is very straightforward and does remorse over any of his recollections. The darkness of the hallucinations Jünger reports to have experienced provides subtle anti-war sentiment. However, in light of the descriptive adventures he sought during the brief moments of peace, the darkness seems to be rationalized as a sacrifice any soldier would make for duty and honor in a vain attempt for his nation’s

In the opening remarks of the first chapter, Ernst Junger describes the idealistic origins of many of the soldiers called to action. Most of the soldiers drafted into the war were students and factory workers, all of whom lived a fairly sheltered life beforehand. Being drafted was seen as the adventure of a lifetime. They “shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary.” Much like his comrades, Junger had the same sense of adventure, seeing the war as merely a new challenge to conquer. After his first real experience with war however, his enthusiasm is quickly dashed. The harsh reality set in that this war was not, in fact, an adventure. Junger and the former schoolboys and craftsmen quickly learned that life in the trenches was a challenge of endurance. As the war persists, reality slowly sets in and Junger learns the true violent nature of the war and the constant threat of imminent danger through which he must persevere. Ernst Junger’s accounts in the memoir Storm of Steel show the reality of a soldier in World War I and the taxation of enduring such great trauma.

Fritz Haber was a contested recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a process using atmospheric nitrogen for ammonia synthesis, primarily due to his wartime efforts on behalf of Germany. The Haber Process was used by the Germans to make explosives during World War I after access to nitrates were cut off by Allied blockades (The Nobel Foundation, 2014). Additionally, Haber developed chemical weapons used against Allied forces. Later controversy was surely stirred by the fact that Haber developed the poisonous gas, Zyklon B, used at Auschwitz. In an ironic twist of fate, Haber was Jewish by birth (Manchester, 2002).

In this essay, I will discuss how Tim O’Brien’s works “The Things They Carried” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone” reveal the individual human stories that are lost in war. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien reveals the war stories of Alpha Company and shows how human each soldier is. In “If I Die in a Combat Zone” O’Brien tells his story with clarity, little of the dreamlike quality of “Things They Carried” is in this earlier work, which uses more blunt language that doesn’t hold back. In “If I Die” O’Brien reveals his own personal journey through war and what he experienced. O’Brien’s works prove a point that men, humans fight wars, not ideas. Phil Klay’s novel “Redeployment” is another novel that attempts to humanize soldiers in war. “Redeployment” is an anthology series, each chapter attempts to let us in the head of a new character – set in Afghanistan or in the United States – that is struggling with the current troubles of war. With the help of Phil Klay’s novel I will show how O’Brien’s works illustrate and highlight each story that make a war.

In Ernst Junger’s memoir, Storm of Steel, the first remarks are of him stepping off the train at Bazancourt, France. Junger eliminates any details about his life before the war, already contrasting most war memoirs written. This serious demeanor that Junger takes on, one that removes emotion from the equation, persists throughout the memoir and can be clearly seen by the way Junger processes the death of his comrades. By getting down to brass tacks, Junger is able to give a detailed recollection of what the life of a soldier in the German Army was like. Ernst Junger’s accounts in the memoir Storm of Steel show the reality of what World War I was truly like, and how he slowly realizes that there’s more nuance to war than he anticipated.