The Effects of War - Essay Example

War is something very dramatic. It involves bloodshed which is signified by men fighting at the front for their motherlands. It is a place where the bravest of the bravest men survive and there is no scope for complacency. It is a sheer test of the human being’s mental and physical persona and is not an easy thing to be at all the time. In this essay, we shall be dealing with two different works on the concept of war. The works are “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria and “Journey’s End” by R.C Sheriff.

Let us first analyze the book “All Quiet on the Western Front”. The book talks about the German soldiers and their hardships during the war which is taking place in Europe. It talks about how the soldiers are going through extreme mental strain and physical hardships. Being in a war is not an easy thing to do and the soldiers are having a very tough time fighting the enemy across the border. It is traumatic and involves severe willpower to overcome the toughness of the terrain as well as the conditions in which they are rigorously fighting and getting the work done for their country.

After the war is done, what is really important is to understand what effect the war has on the soldiers who survived it as well as those whose families suffer because of their death. It is a very intriguing story to read and analyze.

The book is about a soldier known as Paul Baumer, who is fighting in World War 1 for Germany. The book traces the story of this young soldier who is detached from life and feels the age of an old man who has got nothing left in his life after engaging in bloodshed during the war. The book traces the footsteps of this man as when he returns back home everything has changed for him and he feels alien in his own city. Even his friends who were there feel left out for him and he is not able to communicate on the same level with his father. The only person he can make a connection with is his dying mother, and he feels remorse at the fact that his mother is aging and dying right in front of him when everything else has just fallen apart.

 He feels disconnected from the rest of the town and the people ask him depressing and stupid questions. They are not able to understand the plight of a young man who has just come back from a war and the fact that he feels too old and out of happiness to talk or discuss the war itself.

After he returns back to the war front, he kills a man in combat and asks for remorse from the corpse of the man. He is detached from life and feels that there is nothing left to the world and all hope has vanished in thin air.

The book basically talks about the tough and atrocious condition in which the soldier lives and dies. There is not enough food and shelter, but they still keep fighting. They grow old mentally listening to gunshots and the pain of their fellow friends when they are injured or dying. The main theme of the story is the difficulty to revert back to civil life after having experienced heavy combat situations. Paul has difficulty coming back to his town and settling there, and when he finally dies at the end of the story the report says that “All is quiet at the western front’ which highlights the insignificance of the men who fought at the front.

In the second book known as “Journey’s End,” the emphasis is on the British Army during World War 1. It is a drama that is played in the officer’s dugout in the span of 3 days. In this drama plot, the soldiers are chatting with each other and talking about their childhood, the innocence they had and the time they spent wondering about new things in those days. They are going through an ordeal in the war zone and miss their childhood days.

The soldiers are talking about the lack of good food during the war days. All they get is bacon rashers which they have to eat at the war front. It is a lonely life that they are living and lack the fun of the youth.

They discuss how slowly time is passing at the front. During the days when they used to be at home time used to pass at a brisk pace, but now things have changed since they have been at the waterfront, and all the time they are worried and engaged in some or the other thought process with respect to the situation at the front.

Then they discuss how the conditions are bad for a living being to survive. The barbed wire needs to be mended to make the area around which the soldiers are living more secure. It is a tough situation to be in and the soldiers are not satisfied with the way the war has been fought. The play just like the story we mentioned above focuses on the condition of the soldiers. It is a dramatic sequence where the officers are facing nostalgia for their past and feels that they do not belong in the war terrain.

One thing which is common in both stories is the sad depiction of the way the soldiers have been living their lives at the war front. It is a very different and negative experience to encounter and can sometimes lead to mental strain and hardships along with the constant physical torture which they have to go through.