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

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

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