The Road Back

World War 1 and wars in general were always made to show honor and glory. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet On the Western Front, he gives readers a new look on war that was rarely shown before. He uses Paul Baumer, the main character, to tell his story of what he experienced on the German side during World War 1. Remarque uses symbolism throughout his novel to help emphasize his feelings of war and how it affects the characters in the story. He incorporates Hemmerich’s boots,…

pounds them forcing them to hide in a nearby graveyard where the force of the gunshots make the corpses in the graveyard rise from their graves. While at the same time the soldiers hiding among the corpses start falling dead. The soldiers then go back to camp and discuss their plans for after the war ends, The majority of the soldiers have some idea of what they want to do post World War I, but as a group they feel as though the war won’t ever end. The only one who feels somewhat differently is…

was a big mystery where the enemy got there shells from(109). During the bombardment, one of the recruits throws a fit. The recruit is going insane from just sitting there and not going anywhere because of the bombardment. He tells Paul that “I’ll be back in a minute”. And he tries to pas Paul,but he will not let the recruit get up and leave. The recruit gets mad at him and says “Leave me alone,let me go out,I will go out”(109). This is a cause of claustrophobia. He feels that he is suffocating…

War is not a battle between one and one’s opponent but a battle between mankind and war itself. This is depicted in Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (2014). All Quiet on the Western Front portrays a young German soldier fighting in World War I and All the Light We Cannot See follows young blind girl in Saint-Malo and a German orphan part of the Hitler Youth in World War II. Although the two texts explore war though the…

Throughout time, when borders between different countries were established, differences among nationalities were often more accentuated than the similarities; however, when war erupts, differences become more obscure. Both Erich Maria Remarque and John McCrae highlight the ways war draws attention more to commonalities among the soldiers and men from different nationalities than differences. Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front and John McCrae in the poem “In Flanders Fields”,…

their countries realized that war is useless and leads to the loss of many human lives. Their belief of nationalism has befuddled them into now rotting away behind a fence. As the war progresses more countries become involved: “Our lines are falling back.…

Herbert Hoover once said, “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die” (War Quotes). Erich Remarque, the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, wrote the novel to show parts of war that one can only understand with a similar struggle, including the cowardice of the older generation, the horrors of war, and the effects war has on the soldiers. War is hard to understand by those who have not experienced it. “Yet paradoxically, we are greater removed from the fighting now…

Paige Sherlock English 2 First Analytical Essay Topic 3 Changing a Global Perspective All Quiet on the Western Front, an international bestseller, was named the greatest war novel of all time for a multitude of reasons. These reasons do not include his ability to tell an enticing story or describe key points in great detail, but because it changed the perspective of millions of people all over the world and their concept of war. In Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, he shattered…

Why does World War I stand out so much when compared to past wars? It is because World War I is the first modern occurrence of total war. Total war, as the name implies, takes over every aspect of the lives of the people involved, stretching farther than just the battlefield. This is what Paul Baumer finds himself thrust into, as he struggles to tread the line between giving his life, figuratively and literally, to the German army, and ensuring his personal survival and the survival of his best…

From 1914-1918, one of the bloodiest wars in all of human history waged on. Erich Maria Remarque illustrates this reality in All Quiet on the Western Front. The novel follows a young soldier, Paul and his journey from a naive schoolboy to a hardened, experienced soldier, this change is seen quite drastically through the novel. Change is something that is unavoidable, especially in times of war. In Paul Baumer, this change is seen in his changing emotional connection to the war and his views…