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Summary And Symbolism In All Quiet On The Western Front

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The words “poplars” or “trees” are frequently referred to throughout the entire novel. Remarque repeatedly uses them as the symbols of beauty and innocence of youth. As he conjures up the past and its memories, Paul describes, “but most beautiful are the woods with their line of birch trees…then the birches stand out like gay banners on white poles, with their red and gold patches of autumn-tinted leaves” (Remarque 180). The description of the trees and the imagery that is associated with them is vividly beautiful. The poetic language and structure contain underlying symbols of the beauty and innocence of the soldiers’ past. This is suggested by the colors of the “banner” that the trees are compared to: white, red, and gold. Conventionally, the color white symbolizes love and passion; red symbolizes love and passion; gold symbolizes abundance and …show more content…

On the way we [the soldiers] pass through a devastated wood with the tree trunks shattered and the ground ploughed up. At several places there are tremendous craters” (Remarque 207). This is not only contrasting to the previous depiction of the beauty of the trees, as the cacophonous words reflect, but the quote seems to hint at the destruction of abstract aspects of beauty and innocence during the war. This idea is further developed by Remarque, through the voice of Paul, who represents all the soldiers, “between the meadows behind our town there stands a line of old poplars by a stream…We loved them dearly, and the image of those days still makes my heart pause in its beating…They [the memories of the past] are strong and our desire is strong – but they are unattainable, and we know it” (Remarque 120). Such memories of the past, along with the values the trees and poplars possess, are completely destroyed. However, more importantly, Paul explains that they are “unattainable,” meaning the soldiers will never be able to regain

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Imagine a world where trees are lying everywhere; there are craters in the earth as larges as busses and corpses of men lying everywhere. This is a world the past generation experienced. This is World War I. Remarque portrays the technological and military innovations in All Quiet on the Western Front as horrific, in the ways of creating mass casualties, causing psychological problems in the soldiers, and destroying nature. The technological and military innovations that remarque portrays creates mass casualties.

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Throughout the book, Edward Bloor uses figurative language to help describe vivid parts in the novel. For instance, “The ice was forming too rapidly in the new grove; the coatings on the trees were too thick. The loud cracking sound of trees splitting of branches like amputated limbs, or splitting in two like they’d been pole-axed, hung horribly in the frozen night air. We were losing”(225). The figurative language that Edward Bloor uses above, helps you paint the scene in your mind.

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The tree is meant to stand out from everything else and is disregarded by society. In the line “Oh fellow citizen, what have they done to us” it represents what the Indigenous people have had to go through and what pain the English brought with them. Similes are a powerful tool used by writers, they are used in communication as they help to create vivid and memorable descriptions by drawing comparisons between things that may not be inherently

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In contrast with the tree; the walls family were always beaten down due to poverty, spun in different directions by the wind; as in the millions of miles they move about through the country but they also have strong roots as well. Rose; Jeanette’s mother shows a deep interest and fascination over the tree. She loves to study and make portraits about it. In Rose’s perspective the tree is her view about her family; deep underneath their dysfunctional roots of trial and hardships they face; there is a strong bond of love and compassion that they have together as a

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In the book “Roll of thunder hear my cry”, Mildred D. Taylor uses symbolism to provide context, and background information of the how their community is, and who the Logan’s fit in it. A great example when the author provides context and background information would be the fig tree. When the author is describing the fig tree, she describes it as “It keeps on blooming, bearing good fruit year after year, knowing all the time it’ll never get big as them other trees.” (pg 206) The author is trying to describe how the Logan family fits in in the community.

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Remarque applies inclusive language so we can sympathise with how the soldiers must have felt to be wandering in their hometown feeling like an outcast. The lost generation grew up in the war and couldn’t escape from it, and by applying metaphors, high modality language, and negative connotation in his work, “consumed in the fires of reality”, it is implied that the war is inescapable to these men, Remarque’s purpose of this is to illustrate to the readers that when the soldiers go on leave and they feel out of place since they grew up in the war, he is writing on behalf of all soldiers. The soldiers are depicted as being numb as they stroll around civilians who haven’t engaged in war and can live their daily lives, but for them it is the opposite. Remarque positions the readers in the sense of fear of war and evokes empathy for the soldiers who risked their lives and were forced to give up any life they had prior or the life they could

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With the use of imagery, Gary Paulsen shows us that the outdoors is unpredictable. Furthermore, with the help of description, the reader can experience what it's like being in Gary Paulsen's shoes without going through the cruel, frigid temperatures and gruesome deaths. Finally Paulsen can change the mood with his words faster than you can say WOODSONG! While nature is also mesmerizing, it can still surprise you with memorable casualties that can cause an unanticipated turn. Paulsen starts off by taking us to "a grandly beautiful winter morning, the

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Before World War I, all of Europe in 1914, was tense and like a bomb or a fire was waiting to erupt. Europe had not seen a major war in years, but due to Militarism, Imperialism, Alliances, and Nationalism tensions grew high. Each country was competing to be the best by gaining more territory and growing in their military size and successful economies. World War 1 was waiting to happen and the assassination of the Archduke was the spark that lit Europe up. In All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque we see the effects of the assassination.

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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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"Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and uniforms you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert (Remarque 223)". Comradeship among soldiers is a major theme throughout the novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front" because the soldiers knew each other before the war, protected each other during combat, and can relate to one another without having to literally speak. This story 's theme shows comradeship because Paul and the other soldiers were in class together before joining the war. In the beginning of the novel Paul introduces his friends he went to school with before going to war with. "

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Similar to how Engelmann describes life post-war, the narrator describes how it feels in war by stating, “For the common soldier, at least, war has the feel—the spiritual texture—of a great ghostly fog, thick and permanent. There is no clarity. Everything swirls. The old

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The trees seem to symbolize a sort of echo or a keeper of the

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The quote “by morning flames had all dimmed” (16,19) is symbolic to the theme that life continues after an obstacle is faced and overcame. The burning flame of fear waned, and a sense of relief was exposed by the narrator through the dimming of the lit flame. The wick of the candles is a symbol of the narrator himself. “The wicks trembling in their fonts of oil” (12) is symbolic to the fear the narrator and his family displayed in their homes as they watched the action peering through the window with their shades drawn. The word “trembling” is a direct declaration of how the narrator and his family felt in their homes as they watched with fear.

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