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Horror Of War In Erich Maria Remarque's 'The Dug-Out'

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War stories portray many themes in order to strengthen the idea of the story and the Horrors of War are not only one of the themes, but also one of the most important themes to a story of such value. The Horrors of War are shown and portrayed in many forms of literature, such as poetry and the poem by Siegfried Sassoon titled The Dug-Out, short stories like In The Field written by Tim O’Brien, and Erich Maria Remarque’s book All Quiet on The Western Front. Each form of literature symbolizes the theme of the Horrors of War, and they all portray it in their own way. Many different forms of poetry exemplify different things, and the Horrors of War is one thing that poetry can explain thoroughly in just a few stanzas. One poem in particular, The Dug-Out written by …show more content…

The soldiers have to get used to the fact that there is no way to prepare for war, and their lives could be gone at any moment. The soldiers are on the front and they see red rockets shoot up to the sky and this lets them know that “there’s an attack coming” (Remarque). This leaves them with no time to prepare and only time to worry about what will come next and if they would make it out. The attacks began to show up more frequently, and although they now were more likely to know about an attack this gave them a greater chance of death. Attacks and counter-attacks would alternate and “slowly the dead pile up in the field” with less people to fight for their own country (Remarque). This has to be one of the most frightening things, to witness attacks and the death of your comrades, and not know which day may be your last. This novel portrays the Horrors of War extremely well and each horror is described so well that you can visualise the troubles that each soldier went

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This description paints the scenes of the poem as they happen, the powerful connotations of the words battling against each other, and to the grievance of the reader, the negative feelings prevail. This battle illuminates the brutality and fear experienced by soldiers, in WWII, during their final moments on Earth - their fear, sadness, and horrified disgust all hidden between the lines of these two sentences. Foreshadowed by the soldier's machine like tone, the speaker alludes to the fact that he will fight for his life, and

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Erich Maria Remarque was a man who had lived through the terrors of war, serving since he was eighteen. His first-hand experience shines through the text in his famous war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, which tells the life of young Paul Bäumer as he serves during World War 1. The book was, and still is, praised to be universal. The blatant show of brutality, and the characters’ questioning of politics and their own self often reaches into the hearts of the readers, regardless of who or where they are. Brutality and images of war are abundant in this book, giving the story a feeling of reality.

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Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men. Many soldiers entered World War 1 as innocent young boys, but as they experienced the full effect of the war they consequently lost their innocence.

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Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.

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Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, follows the life of a German Soldier, Paul Baumer, serving in the trenches in France during World War I. This novel is told from Baumer’s perspective and depicts the horrors of living in his shoes during this time. Paul and several other young soldiers volunteered for the war after their instructor in school, Kantorek and other authority figures back home filled their heads with glorious ideas about the war. Very quickly, he discovers the reality- gas attacks, fatal illness, starvation, rat infestations, and bloody trenches. This dehumanizing war affects Paul and the soldiers who fought in it by destroying their physical and emotional well being, changing their views on the meaning of life and death, obliterating their sense of nationalism by betrayal, and

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