All Quiet on the Western Front Assignment Help.
Instructions: 1. Erich Maria Remarque published All Quiet on the Western Front in 1929 during a wave of anti-war sentiment in Europe. The novel was read as a criticism of war. What elements of the book do you think make the most powerful anti-war argument?
2. Erich Maria Remarque claimed that World War I created an insurmountable gap between soldiers and civilians. How does his novel describe and bridge this gap?
3. Some have argued that WWI was an assault on the soldiers’ senses. Using All Quiet on the Western Front write a paper about the soldiers’ physical experiences of World War I.
Paper Topic 2
1. Erich Maria Remarque published All Quiet on the Western Front in 1929 during a wave of anti-war sentiment in Europe. The novel was read as a criticism of war. What elements of the book do you think make the most powerful anti-war argument?
2. Erich Maria Remarque claimed that World War I created an insurmountable gap between soldiers and civilians. How does his novel describe and bridge this gap?
3. Some have argued that WWI was an assault on the soldiers’ senses. Using All Quiet on the Western Front write a paper about the soldiers’ physical experiences of World War I.
Solution
All Quiet on the Western Front
All quiet on the western front is a book published by Erich Maria Remarque on January 29, 1929. It was first written in German then translated to English by A.W. Wheen Fawcet Crest. The book is a major publication of war criticism (Remarque, 1929) and it explores the violence and brutality of war in a realistic light. It strips the typical romanticism from the war to a staunchly antiwar. One could say it is a set of an international critically acclaimed success.
The book received attacks from the Nazi regime and the author termed as unpatriotic. He did not attempt to resist the attacks on his reputation because of fear of retaliation. He made a sequel publication in 1931 dubbed Road Back andhis work provoked the Nazi causing him to flee to Switzerland with his wife (Remarque, 1929). However, some of his family members were not lucky as his sister was killed in world war two because of her relationship with him. The central theme prevalent in the book is the terrible brutality of war, which noted in every scene in the novel.
World War one was an assault on the soldiers’ senses, which is captured from the following instances in the book. First, Paul Baumer, who happens to be the narrator and the member of the second company, which is a unit of German soldiers fighting during world war one, is resting after being relieved from the front lines (Remarque, 1929). Most of their times were spent at the frontline in constant battle, and out of the entire brigade which comprised of one hundred and fifty men, only eight managed to return after the war.
Paul recalls of how he and his friends were shy to use general latrines at their first instance as recruits in the military, but later found them a luxury. With the need to overcome mental torture, the soldiers would engage in various activities, for example, smoking and playing cards. Paul himself was ambitious of being a poet in his life before but after the war, he is captured in chapter two as being cynical of the entire situation (Remarque, 1929). He had developed a feeling of emptiness and thoughts of being a soldier taught him more hard lessons about life than a decade in school. Indeed, he develops no interest for poetry and his parents become an “unreliable memory” according to the author. Paul contemplates of how the lives of he and other young men were cut short just as they had begun to live it (Remarque, 1929).
In chapter three, a bunch of new recruits arrives to reinforce the brigade and the author that a considerable number of the reinforcements are about seventeen-year-olds. Kat, who was a member of the first company, gives one of the recruits some of his beans, which he got it by bribing the company’s cook. In returning the favor, he warns the boy to bring him tobacco next time (Remarque, 1929).
Tjaden is a bed wetter, and his sergeant attributes his behavior to laziness. In the camp, he found another bed wetter, Kindervater, who was forced to sleep with him in the same set of bunk beds. Every night they had to shift places and the other’s urine would soak towards the one sleeping on the lower bed during the evening. Their problem was associated to bad health, rendering their sergeants’ plan ineffective. This is because the one, who would often sleep on the bottom, would end up sleeping on the floor and eventually he would catch a cold, hence becoming a liability (Remarque, 1929).
In chapter four, the second bunch of recruits is assigned with a task to lay barbed wires at the front, an extremely dangerous task (Remarque, 1929). While conducting this operation, sounds of gunfire and shells fill the air, gripping the new recruits with fear. The English battalion had begun firing an hour earlier than normal. Paul suggested that the roar of guns and whistling of shells sharpens men’s senses. He contemplates that for a soldier, the earth’s takes on new significance at the front. He buries his body on the earth for shelter, and it receives him every time he throws himself down in a furrow, folds, or even a hollow. In that situation, a man’s ancient animal instincts awaken.
The soldiers had to carry wires and rods with them at the front and lay cables, which were meant to protect them as they try to sleep until the trucks came for them to drive back to the camps. Kat who is one of the soldiers had earlier predicted that there would be a bombardment, which eventually happened. They scramble for cover as the shells land around them (Remarque, 1929). Paul attempts to place a terrified recruit’s helmet back on his head, but he cowers under his arms. Once the shelling reduced, the recruit discovers with embarrassment that he had defecated in his pants. Paul goes ahead and explains that many soldiers experience that problem at first.
As the trucks drive the men back, Kat is seen to be restless. Suddenly, they are attacked and a flurry of bombs land around them. They take cover in a nearby graveyard, as Paul crawls under an open coffin for protection. Later he is seen helping a recruit put his mask on, and then jumps into a hole created by an exploding shell with the logic that shells rarely hit the same place twice. After the shelling stops, he climbs out and notices a recruit lying on the ground with his hip of a mess of flesh and bone splinters. It is quite clear that he will not survive his wounds and Kat whispers that it would be merciful for them to end his life with a gunshot before the agony of his wounds begin to torment him (Remarque, 1929).
REFERENCE
Remarque, E. M. (January 29, 1929). All Quiet On The Western Front. Propylaen Verlag.