All Quiet on the Western Front - Book Report/Review Example

HIST 111 All Quiet on the Western Front We live in a world, in a peaceful world where the idea of primary value of human life dominates.There are various means of comfortable existence which help us to feel the whole abundant heart’s blood. But if we only imagine that familiar to us environment and peaceful life is not around anymore, and there are just war and death everywhere, what kind of feeling it will be? Unfortunately, it is the most terrible and unjustifiable people’s action against the principles of humanism that still has some acts in our reality. So in the first half of the 20th century the Earth was struck by two world wars which have left an indelible imprint on the lives and destinies of millions of people. There are many crippled people and those who have lost the loved. In any case, the souls of the humans who had such an experience would never be the same. For example, the dead as well as the survivors of the World War I whether they participated in warfare or have been civil are called the Lost Generation. One of typical examples in literature describing the war is a novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by German writer Erich Maria Remarque. Moreover, the author is the first one who has quietly, almost routine spoken about death, about sticky animal fear, and the horror of the killing of one person by another. To begin with it must be said that the theme of war as a terrible mistake of mankind passes through the whole narration. It carries death, pain, blood, and sweeps away everything in its path including states and nations. The victims of war are ordinary people for whom it is unnatural, but by the will of a bunch of morally sick tyrants they are involved in a fatal effect called war. In such conditions all social disappear in a human, and only animal fear remains that forces to fight for the preservation of life. Mountains of corpses, blood, and torn pieces of still warm flesh, dirt and lice – there is nothing heroic in the war. Still this is that factor which makes people to kill human feelings in themselves and activate the instinct of self-preservation, the strongest one in a man. There is no normal life for such persons as war has cut them from their reality. They are no longer ordinary people with everyday troubles. They will never be the same again as their stories are of that kind which inverts the human nature and its ability to perceive the life in its sound bright sense. This is how Remarque says about war by one of his characters’ words: "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war." 1 with continuing that idea in “Beyond this our life did not extend. And of this nothing remains.”2 All this suggests that the war has pulled out these people from their normal life and thrown into a bloody meat grinder where they need to survive. The people are not in familiar reality. They are physically and psychologically isolated. The former ideals and values of life now have disappeared under the shrapnel bombing. Human relationships shatter from the explosion of another shell. A new worldview is created in the process of survival. The war has taken away the full life in its truest sense from these people leaving them only despair, death, and fear. Properly, these people are the young men who have nothing behind their backs but war as they even had no time to marry and have their own families. So it becomes clear that the generation of war survivors can be called the Lost Generation for their lost perception of normal being. As for those people who are killed by war they belong to that generation as well, as their lives are wasted by the decisions of war leaders who have just aimed at the compliance of their power ambitions. The war has ruined the usual way of life, and the latter should have been rebuilt. Simultaneously peoples minds have been infected with the horror of war. Almost every human being all over the world has felt the touch of war. But the soldiers who stand almost all the time on the war fields and lie in the trenches are those ones who have experienced the whole fright of war on themselves. "Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades— words, words, words, but they hold the horror of the world." 3 In fact, not every day and every minute, but every second counts because each moment can be the last one if not to keep on the look-out. It is natural that soldiers of opposite sides have to think of their persistence all the time. They even sleep to the strains of blizzards in the dust of the land and with lice on their heads. On the one hand, such a position is not unusual for war, on the other hand, it sounds striking and horrible because it is the constant factor of that time which is perceived as endless by tired to death soldiers. The absence of essential for normal existence conditions still does not remove the human face of the people. Living by war rules, such as normality of killing other humans (enemies), men in the trenches show their willingness to help their comrades to save the life in that senseless war. In fact, there are many “infants” (new-comers) who cannot look after themselves as the mature soldiery manage to, and Remarque depicts how they interact with each other in the time of war charges. The writer describes in details the gas attack, for example, when the main characters (there is no need to call their names as their image is generalized) by their consolidated actions save each other and other members of their troop. Now and then soldiers take care of the fellows and show their readability to relieve anybody’s suffering. Nevertheless, there is no person who can be secured from death. People perish minutely. There is a moment that divides life from death in one body. This is the moment of senseless war. Remarque underlines this by his hero’s words: “I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another."4 Another moment indicating the violent character of arms as well as the life-death battle is the cry of wounded horses which become the innocent victims. This is how Remarque describes their roaring: “Its unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning”5, giving readers one of the curdling blood sounds of awful killing. Life and death meet at its fronts. Coming alive after attacks soldiers perceive the life acutely, while seeing of death minutely turns it to become almost the order of the day. Where life depends only on an occasion, and death lies in wait for the man in every step of the way, soldier can hide in the ruined bombs coffins, kill his fellows to save them from the torment, and for several days hear the painful screams of a dying man without possibility to find him on the front. At the same time death is not perceived as a tragedy any more. It is a way of getting more food, new shoes by other soldiers. Probably it may sound sarcastically but it is true. This is the reality of war that decides whether today is the day of life or the day of death for its every participant. Being inside of war the main characters of the novel remember the way they have become involved in it and the men who have inspired them to think that they will fight for the noble cause and stand for the interests of the country: “There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best--in a way that cost them nothing… The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.”6 As we can see the idealism of imperialism and nationalism being proclaimed by the rules of war has crushed after the first combat having seen by yesterday schoolchildren and today soldiers. They cannot trust the high meaning of that war, realize their nation to be pure as well as better than others or understand the egoistic unhealthy intentions of the German ruler to conquer other country’s lands, for they now understand that it makes no sense at all. There is a great idea that sounds in novel, that is, to let the war initiators to fight between themselves and to award the win to the strongest one. This is the viewpoint that is contrary to the beliefs of the older people. As we can see, this war has divided two generations - while the "parents" still write articles and give speeches about the heroism, "children" pass through the hospitals and the dying; while the "parents" still place the service of the state above all, "children" already know that there is nothing stronger than the fear of death. The war makes the young men to feel themselves old ones as they have gain the negative experience in their life that kills children in them. One of the main consequences of that war for the soldiers is that their perception of life has changed radically. Moreover, their belief of high goal of war has crushed definitely. The boys have turned into men who have another vision of the world than ordinary people who have not passed through the war, or at least have some kind of connection with life. The lost generation has nothing in the peaceful world. The eighteen - nineteen years olds appear to be strangers to the existence of ordinary people, as everything they knew in the past pre-war life is of no value now. In the concrete, the war has betrayed human cognition of reality by the people, and their new life is reflected through the recollections of the cruel world of the death, which is in their memory forever. In conclusion, World War I has changed the life of the Lost Generation. Its senselessness forever cuts off people’s faith in bright future. They only believe in the war, so they have no place in civilian life. They believe only in death with which sooner or later everything ends, so they have no place in life as such. Unfortunately, survivors are the victims of war forever for they cannot find their place in peaceful world. As a matter of fact, the Lost Generation of the novel has passed through the horrible war period with active combats while the rest people were told that on the Western Front is all quiet. Bibliography Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. . Read More

Human relationships shatter from the explosion of another shell. A new worldview is created in the process of survival. The war has taken away the full life in its truest sense from these people leaving them only despair, death, and fear. Properly, these people are the young men who have nothing behind their backs but war as they even had no time to marry and have their own families. So it becomes clear that the generation of war survivors can be called the Lost Generation for their lost perception of normal being.

As for those people who are killed by war they belong to that generation as well, as their lives are wasted by the decisions of war leaders who have just aimed at the compliance of their power ambitions. The war has ruined the usual way of life, and the latter should have been rebuilt. Simultaneously peoples minds have been infected with the horror of war. Almost every human being all over the world has felt the touch of war. But the soldiers who stand almost all the time on the war fields and lie in the trenches are those ones who have experienced the whole fright of war on themselves.

"Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades— words, words, words, but they hold the horror of the world." 3 In fact, not every day and every minute, but every second counts because each moment can be the last one if not to keep on the look-out. It is natural that soldiers of opposite sides have to think of their persistence all the time. They even sleep to the strains of blizzards in the dust of the land and with lice on their heads.

On the one hand, such a position is not unusual for war, on the other hand, it sounds striking and horrible because it is the constant factor of that time which is perceived as endless by tired to death soldiers. The absence of essential for normal existence conditions still does not remove the human face of the people. Living by war rules, such as normality of killing other humans (enemies), men in the trenches show their willingness to help their comrades to save the life in that senseless war.

In fact, there are many “infants” (new-comers) who cannot look after themselves as the mature soldiery manage to, and Remarque depicts how they interact with each other in the time of war charges. The writer describes in details the gas attack, for example, when the main characters (there is no need to call their names as their image is generalized) by their consolidated actions save each other and other members of their troop. Now and then soldiers take care of the fellows and show their readability to relieve anybody’s suffering.

Nevertheless, there is no person who can be secured from death. People perish minutely. There is a moment that divides life from death in one body. This is the moment of senseless war. Remarque underlines this by his hero’s words: “I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another."4 Another moment indicating the violent character of arms as well as the life-death battle is the cry of wounded horses which become the innocent victims.

This is how Remarque describes their roaring: “Its unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning”5, giving readers one of the curdling blood sounds of awful killing. Life and death meet at its fronts. Coming alive after attacks soldiers perceive the life acutely, while seeing of death minutely turns it to become almost the order of the day. Where life depends only on an occasion, and death lies in wait for the man in every step of the way, soldier can hide in the ruined bombs coffins, kill his fellows to save them from the torment, and for several days hear the painful screams of a dying man without possibility to find him on the front.

At the same time death is not perceived as a tragedy any more. It is a way of getting more food, new shoes by other soldiers.

Read More