All Quiet on the Western Front and A Long Way Gone: A Psychological and Emotional Comparison
Imagine yourself in the middle of a field, your comrades dying around you, people crying out for their mothers. This is the dreadful reality of war. The novels All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah follow the stories of Paul Baumer and Ishmael Beah, two young soldiers experiencing these things every day. The psychological and emotional journey of these adolescents can be compared and contrasted in three main points. Both men experience a loss of everything that they have and a loss of everything that makes them human because of the war. But it also can be noted that there is a contrast in the viewpoint …show more content…
In an attempt to survive a soldier experiences this everytime there is combat. Dehumanization is seen in All Quiet on the Western Front and A Long Way Gone. All Quiet on the Western Front represents this emotion with the quote “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down--now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and to be revenged.” This act of dehumanization is necessary to not only to be successful in war but survive it as well. Baumer feels it is not a fight against the enemy, rather death himself, and that they must do whatever possible to endure the terrible conditions of combat. In the memoir A Long Way Gone the boy soldiers of Sierra Leone experience this same act of dehumanization, stripping themselves of their emotions in order to kill the enemy. We see this in the quote “The idea of death didn't cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water. My mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed.” This shows how Ishmael was unable to connect the “enemy” he was …show more content…
In All Quiet on the Western Front it is clearly presented that the public puts an idealized image on the life of a soldier. A strong sense of patriotism and nationalism is shown through the quote ‘"During drill-time Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the District Commandant and volunteered. I can see him now, as he used to glare at us through his spectacles and say in a moving voice: "Won't you join up, Comrades?"’. Kantorek pressures the boys into joining the war. However, in the memoir A Long Way Gone we don't see the same pressure. Beah is more forced into the combat, having to choose between fighting and death. This is presented in the quote “This man and his child decided to leave this morning even though I told him it was dangerous. The man insisted that he didn't want to be part of the war, so I gave him his wish and let him go. Look what happened. The rebels shot him in the clearing.” The feeling of patriotism and nationalism is not in this quote. In A Long Way Gone it isn’t seen as honorable to join the war, it is seen as a
Imagine yourself in the middle of a field, your comrades dying around you, people crying out for their mothers. This is the dreadful reality of war. The novels All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah follow the stories of Paul Baumer and Ishmael Beah, two young soldiers experiencing these things every day. The psychological and emotional journey of these adolescents can be compared and contrasted in three main points. Both men experience a loss of everything that they have and a loss of everything that makes them human because of the war. But it also can be noted that there is a contrast in the viewpoint …show more content…
In an attempt to survive a soldier experiences this everytime there is combat. Dehumanization is seen in All Quiet on the Western Front and A Long Way Gone. All Quiet on the Western Front represents this emotion with the quote “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down--now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and to be revenged.” This act of dehumanization is necessary to not only to be successful in war but survive it as well. Baumer feels it is not a fight against the enemy, rather death himself, and that they must do whatever possible to endure the terrible conditions of combat. In the memoir A Long Way Gone the boy soldiers of Sierra Leone experience this same act of dehumanization, stripping themselves of their emotions in order to kill the enemy. We see this in the quote “The idea of death didn't cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water. My mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed.” This shows how Ishmael was unable to connect the “enemy” he was …show more content…
In All Quiet on the Western Front it is clearly presented that the public puts an idealized image on the life of a soldier. A strong sense of patriotism and nationalism is shown through the quote ‘"During drill-time Kantorek gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the District Commandant and volunteered. I can see him now, as he used to glare at us through his spectacles and say in a moving voice: "Won't you join up, Comrades?"’. Kantorek pressures the boys into joining the war. However, in the memoir A Long Way Gone we don't see the same pressure. Beah is more forced into the combat, having to choose between fighting and death. This is presented in the quote “This man and his child decided to leave this morning even though I told him it was dangerous. The man insisted that he didn't want to be part of the war, so I gave him his wish and let him go. Look what happened. The rebels shot him in the clearing.” The feeling of patriotism and nationalism is not in this quote. In A Long Way Gone it isn’t seen as honorable to join the war, it is seen as a