Erich Segal

From the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, many images linger in my mind. The war had many gruesome details that the men on the front have to deal with every day. One image that particularly haunts me is when Paul is stuck with the enemy soldier he killed. He spends this time with him, talking to a dead man as though he was still alive. After Paul stabs the soldier, he immediately regrets it and pleas for forgiveness. This is extremely disturbing and creates the feeling of pity and sorrow…

Merriam-Webster defines the term motif as a “usually recurring salient thematic element (as in the arts); especially : a dominant idea or central theme” (“Motif”). In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque mentions two principle motifs which are comradeship and lost generation. The novel follows a young solider, Paul Bäumer, and his comrades throughout their journey at the front of World War I. The soldiers experience many horrors throughout their time in the…

The destruction, devastation, and desolation of war illustrate the dangers of conflict. Taken during the new age of photography, Scene Showing Deserted Camp and Wounded Soldier by Matthew Brady allowed numerous Americans to see the Civil War with their own eyes. While no visible conflicts appear in the work, it still illustrates the destructive abilities of war on both the human and nature. In the photo, the rifle next to the injured soldier suggests a recent battle. The broken walls and…

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is an anti-war novel expressing the views of an average World War I soldier named Paul. Erich Maria Remarque uses an assortment of voice elements to create tone. In the passage on the preceding page, Paul describes his surroundings on the front. The tone of the excerpt is presented to be emotionless and overwhelming. An example of a voice element that has a large role in the tone is diction. Diction is used in the excerpt by the use of the…

In the short story Where Have You Gone, Charming Bill? , by Tim O’Brien, Private First Class Paul Berlin, the main character, is constantly consumed by his fear. He is fighting in the Vietnam War and the one thing that seems to always be on his mind is his fear. He tries to be brave, for his father, but his attempts fail due to his overpowering fear that controls him. Private First Class Paul Berlin fails in trying to achieve his goal of not being afraid because of his misunderstanding of what…

All Quiet on the Western Front focuses on a generation of bright young men, who for a while survived the war physically, but were destroyed psychologically due to the extreme conditions they were forced to live in. Although soldiers and war are portrayed as glorious and heroic by many different sources in those times, war was infact a vicious and horrific time where innocent lives are lost and destroyed. A whole generation lost their lives without anyone stopping to mourn or remember them, but…

Accompanying the great horrors of the war was an extraordinary sense of comradeship that was forged between the soldiers as they went through countless hardships and unimaginable suffering together. Throughout Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul and the men of the Second Company received strength from one another. As the war created a sharp distinction between soldiers and civilians, Paul and his friends only had each other. When all else fail, they could only rely…

Q2. In this book All Quiet on the Western Front, the men are changed physically, mentally, and emotionally. The impact these changes bring upon each man is drastic, this is their new way of life. Once they have experienced what they have, there would be no going back. In the book, Paul Bäumer struggles with the reality of not being able o relate back to his old home because the war had changed him so much. Paul Bäumer was not the only man who would be changed, many of his close friends would be…

In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Katczinsky seems to be the leader of the pack. He is older, mature, and strong. However, he internally struggles when he does not receive the amount of food he believes all of the men deserve. He gets angry when the sergeant-cook refuses to give the mean more food. He continues to give demands to the cook, “Why won’t that do, you old carrot?” (5). The sergeant-cook discusses how he is only allowed to ration food for eighty men, but Katczinsky…

In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, war makes the soldiers act indifferently towards their surroundings, and it shows the demoralizing impact of losing oneself through the character Paul Baümer. Throughout the book, there are many examples of black humor that emphasize the effects that war has had on the soldiers’ identities. Especially when the soldiers are on the front line or going to the front, they are forced to behave in the stereotypical soldier manner of being tough…