Experiences of War in Literature When authors write, they typically create literature about experiences they have had; or they may write characters whom they associate themselves with. The practice of doing this is extremely evident in the stories All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Both men have experience in which they write these novels from. From the age of eighteen Remarque was conscripted into the German Army to fight in World War I, while Ernest Hemingway spent months in Spain during the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent. The characters of Paul Bäumer and Robert Jordan are faced with the murky decisions and false idealistic views in both works. These false pretenses
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“ The fascists are warm, he thought, and they are comfortable, and tomorrow night we will kill them. It is a strange thing and I do not like to think of it. I have watched them all day and they are the same men that we are” (Hemingway 106). Though the two sides symbolize opposing ideologies, the men on each side are still people. This idea is also accentuated in All Quiet on the Western Front when Kropp states "It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Kropp, "we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?" (Remarque 97). The characters Robert and Paul think about this idea constantly, such as the scene when Paul kills the French soldier, and when Robert gazes upon the fascists during his various reconnaissance measures. Even the words used to identify the opposing sides soldiers are dehumanizing. War would be too personal if, instead of deciding designations such as “fascists”, and “the French” to the opposing side, they were referred to as just people. Equally important to the idea of the waste of life that war is the idea of the effects on those doing the killing. In the case of the novels the people doing the killing shows an abhorrence to the idea, and do not enjoy it in the slightest. Anselmo, Robert Jordan’s closest ally in the book For Whom the Bell Tolls has …show more content…
When Paul goes behind enemy lines to check the enemy's strength when suddenly a bombardment starts. Paul hides in a shell crater, and is soon joined by a French enemy soldier whom he quickly stabs. This quote also paints the idea that Paul was blinded by what he was told by his officers and his nationalistic teacher, and through this action of killing, gains full clarity of the implications of war.
“Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
(Remarque
“ The fascists are warm, he thought, and they are comfortable, and tomorrow night we will kill them. It is a strange thing and I do not like to think of it. I have watched them all day and they are the same men that we are” (Hemingway 106). Though the two sides symbolize opposing ideologies, the men on each side are still people. This idea is also accentuated in All Quiet on the Western Front when Kropp states "It's queer, when one thinks about it," goes on Kropp, "we are here to protect our fatherland. And the French are over there to protect their fatherland. Now who's in the right?" (Remarque 97). The characters Robert and Paul think about this idea constantly, such as the scene when Paul kills the French soldier, and when Robert gazes upon the fascists during his various reconnaissance measures. Even the words used to identify the opposing sides soldiers are dehumanizing. War would be too personal if, instead of deciding designations such as “fascists”, and “the French” to the opposing side, they were referred to as just people. Equally important to the idea of the waste of life that war is the idea of the effects on those doing the killing. In the case of the novels the people doing the killing shows an abhorrence to the idea, and do not enjoy it in the slightest. Anselmo, Robert Jordan’s closest ally in the book For Whom the Bell Tolls has …show more content…
When Paul goes behind enemy lines to check the enemy's strength when suddenly a bombardment starts. Paul hides in a shell crater, and is soon joined by a French enemy soldier whom he quickly stabs. This quote also paints the idea that Paul was blinded by what he was told by his officers and his nationalistic teacher, and through this action of killing, gains full clarity of the implications of war.
“Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
(Remarque