ipl-logo

Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

1114 Words5 Pages

War is a cruel event created by mankind and inflicted upon one another, whether it be for power, for glory, or to settle an argument. One of these events, World War One, lasted from 1914 to 1918 and devastated the soldiers of the Triple Entente and the Central Powers. All Quiet on The Western Front is a war novel written by Erich Maria Remarque that tells World War One from the perspective of a German soldier and is considered “The Greatest War Novel of All Time.” “Dulce Et Decorum Est” was a poem written by Wilfred Owen who was an English poet and soldier who fought and was killed in World War One. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” was a poem also written by Wilfred Owen who was in a Scottish hospital recovering from shell-shock in 1917. Gallipoli …show more content…

Some soldiers died quickly, but most suffered severe injuries for hours or days and died afterwards. At this point, the dead are just considered “vacancies” as said in All Quiet on The Western Front in this quote. “Reinforcements have arrived. The vacancies have been filled and the sacks of straw in the huts are already booked.” (Page 35, All Quiet on The Western Front). As mentioned previously, these men die deaths that can be quick and painless or gradual and filled with agony. But these deaths are not mourned, they are forgotten as soon as they are acknowledged so progress can be made on the battlefield. “...No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs…” (Lines 5-6, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”). These soldiers are not mourned because there are numerous men out there that can still replace them, they are like cattle. “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” (Line 1, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”). So many men die, yet there are still the puppet masters in war, the war generals who “kill” even more men by forcing them to fulfill a plan that will most likely fail. Plans that will most likely fail and numerous men will lose their lives in vain. “‘You are to push on.’ ‘It's cold-blooded murder.’ ‘I said push on.’ ‘Right, sir. Can't ask the men to do what I wouldn't do myself. All right, men, we're going.’” …show more content…

They once felt happiness, sadness, anger, and remorse, but now, there is nothing for them. They are like empty shells of their former selves:

...I support myself with the butt of my rifle against my feet and clench my teeth fiercely, but I cannot speak a word, my sister’s call has made me powerless, I can do nothing, I struggle to make myself laugh, to speak, but no word comes, and so I stand on the steps, miserable, helpless, paralysed… (Pages 157-158, All Quiet on The Western Front).

Their emotions being taken away are due to soldiers becoming so used to the conditions of war, that gun shells can be just as generic as

Show More
Related
699 Words | 3 Pages

After the 14 days of fighting, they got to rest from the war. However, almost half of their regiment is gone, only having 80 members of the 150 of them. Bäumer then explains about his day after the 14 days of fighting and who the soldiers really were. He introduces

Read More
1683 Words | 7 Pages

Foote transcribes the exact number of deaths, injuries, and captures to point out that real people died, and everyone who died or went missing or got injured were important to the war effort. The men fought so they could continue their lifestyles, despite their knowledge of the foreseen death they still chose to fight. The bloody battles left men injured or sick because in the area that the troops settled, disease spread rapidly. Even adept soldiers struggled to overcome the harsh aspects of war, including Lee himself who injured himself on a horse in battle (664). War always led to fatalities, and even with the soldiers and politicians awareness of the dangers they still chose to go to combat.

Read More
1891 Words | 8 Pages

This passage shows how the soldiers are emotionally and mentally drained by the horrors of war, and how they feel disconnected from the world they once knew. The

Read More
551 Words | 3 Pages

The last line of the poem says, ‘they’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early.’ This means that those that died in

Read More
679 Words | 3 Pages

The poem uses vivid and graphic imagery to depict the gruesome conditions that soldiers face on the battlefield. The first stanza describes soldiers returning to their trenches after being on

Read More
1458 Words | 6 Pages

The soldiers had been trained for an ideal war, and the one they were thrown into was far different. The once true ideals of the men were destroyed in the war, and eventually they like most men were killed. Men were like a number on the battlefield. People fought

Read More
1559 Words | 7 Pages

Death was a norm to these soldiers that also made them lack certain emotions when witnessing someone dying. Usually people would mourn when witnessing a person dying, but not soldiers. Death was basically a routine for the soldiers who had to be at war. The killing of a large number of people was a typical for them. Storm of Steel gives us a insight of how death had become part of their daily life.

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

They see the Ground stained with blood and the carcasses left behind, Some are even burnt that nothing is left but their skeleton and some cloth that is stained on their rib cage and their cranium. Nothing left as the soldiers look onto no man's land but the horrific sight of what battle their was there and what battle their will be for their

Read More
635 Words | 3 Pages

Every single soldier in the war came close to death, whether watching a fellow fighter die, almost dying themselves, or killing an innocent victim. Anywhere from 620,000-850,000

Read More
421 Words | 2 Pages

In his gripping poem entitled, Losses, Randell Jarrell normalizes war and the barbarities that it induces. Unlike Mary Ann in The Things They Carried, who feels invigorated and fully embraces war, Jarrell describes how war causes men to become insensitive and dazed. Seemingly, as a result of being constantly exposed to such horrors, soldiers lose their understanding of loss, and see death as an insignificant, ordinary occurrence. The narrator articulates, “With enormous adrenaline rushing through you, friends and fellow soldiers dying left and right, bullets of varying size and sound whizzing past you...stopping to help carry a wounded friend to safety and taking a bullet as a result, this is all a "mistake" on your part... How cold and unforgiving the world of war is.” (Jarrelll).

Read More
906 Words | 4 Pages

It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning.” (61) That quote describes how painful it was for the men to listen to innocent creature slowly die. The horses have done no bad deed, they just happened to be standing where the shots were fired and were hit instead of the enemy. This shows how war creates a loss of innocence, in multiple aspects. While the men were listening to the horses cry for hours, waiting to be put out of their misery, the men become depressed.

Read More
649 Words | 3 Pages

The lack of empathy and grief shows their numbing of emotions, which is further proven when the quote mentions “without resentment”. This suggests that the soldiers have been desensitized to the death and despair around them, so much so that they do not even feel any anger or resentment towards their enemy, who killed their comrade. This motif is also present in the novel All Quiet On The Western Front. As the soldiers are on their

Read More
444 Words | 2 Pages

soldiers are constantly dying in wars many of them never return home. Many of the soldiers never return home for proper burial or even to be properly identified. The family never gets to see their loved one again. Their loved ones were never told by a doctor that their time was near. They were not one last chance to say “good-bye” or “I love you”.

Read More
1258 Words | 6 Pages

The loss of life was also extremely traumatizing to soldiers. The US concurred lighter losses than those of Russian, Chinese, and European troops; however, the death count was still high (Wolf, Slide 14). Richard Leacock remembered having friends die in his arms, burying them respectfully, and moving on (Terkel, Location 6911). The constant threat of death made soldiers fear it much less than they would have back on American soil. They understood death was inevitable and maybe hoped that not fearing it would bring the Allies that much closer to victory.

Read More
765 Words | 4 Pages

This line also introduces the development of the electric telegraph, which allowed people to follow the actions of the brigade and give support to the brigades' personnel in such a horrible, and yet honourable deed. Unfortunately, the Light Brigade renders the battle, yet not all the soldiers come back since many of them have died. The glorification these soldiers appears under the usage of the pronoun “they” (45), and it refers to both those who have died and those who have survived, appears with the sentence “came thro’ the jaws of Death/ Back from the mouth of Hell” (46 - 47). The resurrection of the dead men happens within the memories; by resurrecting from “the mouth of Hell” (47), the soldiers are elevated and glorified, as they have protected and died honourably in the name of their country. Almost at the end of the poem, Tennyson introduces a rhetorical question: "When can their glory fade?", the poet is not asking for an answer but rather emphasizing that the glory of the soldiers of the Light Brigade cannot, and will not, fade as the sacrifice they have made is not only personal, to fight for one’s own life, but also social.

Read More

More about Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Related Topics

Open Document