November 14th, 1979. All Quiet on the Western Front. A drama and war film that goes in depth to the trenches and the German patriotism that lies deep within. Late in World War I on the German Western Front. Directed by Delbert Mann, a young German soldier faces the realities and horror of World War I, face to face. The story begins with a young German teenger, Paul Baumer, who is drafted into the war; eager to fight and serve his country. At his school, him and his friends were filled with relentless propaganda and lies about how amazing the war was. Therefore, soon after graduation, they all eagerly signed up to be drafted. Little did they know, they’d be faced with unimaginable horrors and brutal situations that they won’t be able to bare. In school, they were led to believe that they would seek glory and adventure on the battlefield, and discover great freedom whilst fighting for their very own country. It was …show more content…
A young teenage boy gets drafted into the war with high expectations of freedom and an experience of manhood. Little does young Paul know, he would be faced with the true hardships of the Western front. The horrors of the war were unimaginable, and this film allowed us to experience what it was like to be surrounded by the continuous deaths and traumatizing situations. Fighting for your life and fighting to save your teammate’s life isn’t something that just anyone can do, but it was expected from the young teenage boys who were drafted into this war. There were no room for errors and if you had made a mistake, you’d be lucky to be alive to fix it. Death surrounds us everywhere, whether you’re in the trenches or under your comfy sheets at home- there is no escape. Always suspect danger, when it is quiet on the Western
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.
In the year 1914, a war started that would turn innocent people against each other, and have aftermaths that include thousands of people dead due to new equipment like tanks, gas attacks, and hand-to-hand combat. In this war there was a soldier named Paul Bäumer who is a German nineteen year old who has made friends that will last a lifetime during this experience, but has also felt immense pain. His daily routine is to sleep, eat, and fight in the trenches, and he experiences death every day. Most soldiers view death as a recurring event, but Paul views it as wretchedness, which makes him different from others by caring about his comrades more than others. Paul shows many qualities through this experience of being a soldier in the First World War, and he learns what is necessary in life, which takes some people years to figure out.
All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of Paul Baumer, a German young man who is drafted into the army with some of his high school friends. Unfortunately, he and his friends have unrealistic ideas about what they are going to face while serving. The movie shows the tragedy of war through the emotional connection characters have, and focuses on the experiences had by the newly enlisted group of friends. I both enjoyed and did not enjoy the movie All Quiet on the Western Front. The parts that I enjoyed included the detail and historical accuracy which could be lined up with the information we have been learning in class.
While Paul, the main character, was on leave from the war he says, “I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world” (168). For the soldiers the real world is hard for them to cope because they are so accustomed to battling for their lives. They are so used to be in a world where all they do is fight; to come home to normalcy where there is no battling and worrying is
The movie Grand Illusion was very different from the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. The stories and settings were completely different, and had very little to do with each other. But even though the film and the book are completely different, they both give the same idea of the war being a horrible place, the movie had just approached the topic very mildly (in comparison to the book). The movie had avoided war on the battlefield, along with harsh conditions, and focused in a prison, instead. The novel however felt like a heavier topic, more emotional.
In order to emphasize the degree to which the soldiers in World War I changed emotionally, Paul juxtaposes the innocence of his youth with a primal instinct of desperate survival that forms from the brutality of the war. As time passes, each of the soldiers slowly loses his sense of self, specifically seen when Bäumer and Kropp, a fellow soldier, cannot seem to recognize themselves in a regular life in the future after the war. Kropp then interprets this as a loss of preparedness because of war. Paul seems to agree as he reminisces, “We were eighteen
World War I was one of the most barbaric and horrendous events that impacted world history. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich M. Remarque drives home this brutality through his main character. The theme brutality and carnage is displayed through the presence of death, violence, and the guilt the soldiers must carry within them. The soldiers were permanently scarred by the events they witnessed as death is always around them..
War is a harsh reality that is inflicted upon the unwilling through the “need” of it’s predecessors and those whom wish it. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19 year old Paul and his friends in the “Second Company”. Even though they are just out of school age, they have already seen things that many could not bear to even think about. Eventually, all of his friends die, and even Paul too, dies. Remarque uses diction and syntax as literary devices to express his anti-war theme, or lesson.
All Quiet on The Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel composed after World War One to convey the experiences of German soldiers during this horrific time of fighting. He brought to light many important issues that occur during wars. In this book, three horrors of war that had the largest impact were the lack of sanitation in the trenches, the loss of comrades, and the shock that came from unexpected and ongoing shelling. The lack of sanitation in the trenches caused many diseases, infections, and terrible memories to me made.
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.
Soldier Boys is a novel about two young boys, Spencer and Dieter, who have gone off to fight in World War II. Both boys decide to enlist to prove a point; Spencer joins to show his family that he is no longer a silly teenage boy with a crush and Dieter to prove how great of a German boy and soldier he is to the Fuhrer and Germans all over the world. They soon learn that the war is not about them, but instead the people they have chosen to protect and the beliefs they must stick by. The author, gives great insight to both sides of the same war and the emotions involved, because he writes about why people on either side join, how other soldiers and their actions influence what type of soldier a person becomes, and how the outcome of a single
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
In the book, All Quiet On the Western front, the main character is Paul Baumer, an eighteen-year-old boy. Many of his classmates also enlisted to be in the war, they were around Pauls age. One of the reasons why the war takes such a huge toll on the soldiers is because they are being forced into a state of mind where it is either kill or be killed. They are not children in high school anymore. This relates to the lost generation because it asserts the loss of the innocence in the soldiers.
Present throughout the book is the theme of disillusionment. In the school, they’ve been told by their schoolmasters and parents that unless they join the war, they would remain cowards. They see propaganda after propaganda, all alluding towards the glory of battle and warfare. Out on the front, they realize that nothing was further from the truth. Their dreams of being heroes shattered, like when they compare themselves to the soldier on a poster in chapter 7.
The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque depicts one protagonist, Paul, as he undergoes a psychological transformation. Paul plays a role as a soldier fighting in World War I. His experiences during the war are not episodes the average person would simply experience. Alternatively, his experiences allow him to develop into a more sophisticated individual. Remarque illustrates these metamorphic experiences to expose his theme of the loss of not only people’s lives but also innocence and tranquility that occurs in war.