Free Essays - All Quiet on the Western Front :: All Quiet on the Western Front Essays

Essay All Quiet on the Western Front An anti- state of war novel ofttimes portrays many of the bad aspects and consequences of war. Erich Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel set in the First World fight that is against war. Remarque describes the terrible reality of the war, focusing on the horrors and involved. The novel portrays an anti-war perspective as it brings up issues about the brutality of war, the narrators change of attitude towards war, the futility of war and the deaths of the narrators friends. In the novel, Remarque presents the brutality of war. Early on in the novel, he describes the sound of the wounded horses and how brutal the war atmosphere is. There is a whole world of pain in that sound, creation itself under torture, a wild and horrifying agony (p44). The brutality of war in the novel, however, is mainly shown through human suffering. Baumer talks about brutal things that soldiers are just expected to do. He says, When you put a bay atomic number 53t in, it can stick, and you have to give the former(a) man a hefty kick to get it out (p74). The German soldiers attack the enemy with extreme instinctive brutality. With the butt of his rifle, Kat smashes to pulp one of the machine-gunnersWe bayonet the others before they can get their grenades out (p84). The use of poison gas is also a very brutal practice throughout the novel. Baumer describes this man he is in a gassed area, hoping that his gas mask is working properly. He says, I know the terrible sights from the field hospital, soldiers who have been gassed, choking for days on end as they spew up their burned-out lungs, bit by bit (p48). The narrator changes his attitude towards war as he becomes more awake(predicate) of its undesirable effects. Even in the beginning, Baumer realises its terrible reality and the change it has made to his life. He says, We have lost all our ability to see things in other ways, because they are artificial. For us, it is only the fa cts that count (p15). The physical change of the narrator and his helpmate soldiers also indicate that he has gone through an attitude change towards war. We Paul Baumer and his fellow soldiers became tough, suspicious, hard-hearted, vengeful and rough (p19). When the narrator talks about the difference between his life before the war and his life at the present time, it becomes clear that he has changed a great deal.