All Quiet on the Western Front’ is a Powerful Anti-War Novel Essay Example

horrific injuries. Of the five initial friends, Kemmerich was the first to die: 'We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The face is still wet from the tears.

The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons. During one bombardment horses got hit, making Detering distressed. Sensuous language and vivid description is used to intensify the horror of this situation: 'It's unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning. ' This situation is exaggerated and is put on a large scale, which intensifies the horror and makes the reader imagine what an awful thing war was.

Kropp and Baumer get caught in the open during a bombardment. Although hit and injured, both have to run to avoid getting hit again: The shot is just a little above his knee. Then I take a look at myself. My trousers are bloody and my arm, too. ' The conditions of the war were awful. There was hardly any food and bread was the main diet: 'We pull our belts tighter and chew every mouthful three times as long. Still the food does not last out; we are damnably hungry. I take out a scrap of bread eat the white and put the crust back in my knapsack; from time to time I nibble at it. ' This quote illustrates how bad the situation was during the war. The soldiers were fed barely enough for survival.

It was hard to fight with so little energy. The water was in short supply, and was often needed to cool down the guns, which meant the soldiers had

to sacrifice their own water to help the fight for survival. Lice were another major problem during the war. They got in to the soldiers' hair: 'Killing each separate louse is a tedious business when a man has hundreds. The little beasts are hard and the everlasting cracking with one's fingernails very soon becomes wearisome. '

Lice are not a major problem compared to a war, but are annoying to the soldiers, so they devise a method to kill them off: So Tjaden has rigged up the lid of the boot-polish tin with a piece of wire over the lighted stump of a candle. The lice are simply thrown into this little pan. Crack! and they're done for. ' Rats were a major problem within the living quarters. The rats eat the soldier's food and are everywhere: 'Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing rats that try to storm the walls. ' The soldiers need as much food as possible so they kill the rats, battering them to death with spades.

The writer gives impact by the way he describes the rats: They have shocking, evil, naked faces, and it is nauseating to see their long, nude tails. ' This quote illustrates how repulsive the rats are, and make the reader understand what soldiers in the war had to go through. Battles were chaotic and noisy. Gas attacks were an important weapon during the war, and any inhalation of the gas was fatal. Gas attacks were terrifying for the soldiers: 'The gas still creeps over the ground and sinks into all hollows.

Like a big, soft jellyfish it floats into our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely.

The vivid description of this scenario provokes an image in the mind of the reader and impact is given. Bombardments were frequent and the soldiers were helpless, and could do nothing to save themselves: 'But we don't get as far as that; a second bombardment begins. It is no longer as though shells roared; it is the earth itself raging. ' This quote shows how the soldiers felt when the bombardment was going on. The bombardments are like earthquakes and the soldiers are terrified. Killing men was awful for the soldiers. Baumer was in a shell hole, and a French soldier jumped in with him.

Baumer's natural instinct from his training was to kill him: 'I do not think at all, I make no decision - I strike madly home, and feel only how the body suddenly convulses, then becomes limp, and collapses. ' The writer then portrays an awful image of the man dying: 'The man gurgles. It sounds to me as though he bellows, every gasping breath is like a cry, a thunder - but it is only my heart pounding. ' Baumer is in anguish listening to the man making terrible noises. He cannot stand it. When Baumer and his friends were new recruits, they felt a sense of betrayal by their schoolmaster, Kantorek.

Most things taught by him were useless and impractical in war: 'Naturally we couldn't blame Kantorek for this. Where would we be if one brought every man to book? There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best - in a way that cost them nothing. And that is why they let

us down so badly. ' To win the war, the soldiers need to be practical. Katczinsky taught them anything practical to help get them through the war, and was a great friend to Baumer. One of the soldiers' main fears was battle. There was a great risk of getting killed.

The older recruits would never see their family again if they were killed. The younger recruits never experienced what adult life was like so they would miss out if they died. The new recruits were very scared as they had never experienced anything so terrifying. One of them was so scared he filled his pants: "Many's the man before you has had his pants full after the first bombardment. Go behind that bush there and throw your underpants away. Get along.... " War is a terrifying experience for anyone involved and the soldiers here were no different. One of the soldiers' main fears was the hospitals.

The conditions were cramped and awful. Amputation took place when a soldier had only a small injury because it was easier and quicker for the doctors to do that: 'Every soldier some time during his hundreds of inspections falls into the clutches of one of these countless hero-grabbers who pride themselves on changing as many C3's and B3's as possible into A1's. ' Kropp is particularly terrified of amputation and threatens to kill himself if he has a leg amputated: '"I've made up my mind," he says after a while, "if they take off my leg, I'll put an end to it. I won't go through life as a cripple. '

Kropp threatens extreme measures here, showing how bad he thinks it

would feel to have only one leg. He feels very strongly if he would rather be dead than just one leg missing. During the war the soldiers felt a sense of loneliness and alienation. When Baumer is on sentry duty he feels very isolated and alone. When Baumer is at home, he feels alienated from his life before the war. Nothing matters to him anymore, such as his books: 'I stand there dumb. Dejected. Words, Words, Words - they do not reach me. Slowly I place the books back in the shelves. Nevermore.

Quietly, I go out of the room. ' All he thinks about is war, and war is all that matters to him. Everything else seems to lose importance. All the soldiers have lost their youth. They went into war as young adults, but have lost all youthfulness: 'Iron Youth. Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk. ' All these men have lost a part of their lives, they will never again experience how it feels to be young. They have lost all innocence. They have done things which they would never and should never have done at their ages.

This gives impact and helps the reader understand how war took away parts of people's lives, if they were not killed. An extremely sad part of the war for the soldiers were the death of comrades. Many became very good friends and it was devastating for the soldiers when one of them died. Kemmerich was the first to die of the initial five friends who joined the army together. The

first death is always one of the hardest to come to terms with. The hardest death for Baumer was the death of his greatest friend, Kat. Kat became almost like a brother to Baumer.

When Baumer was carrying Kat he didn't even know he was dead: 'On the way without my having noticed it, Kat has caught a splinter in his head. There is just one little hole, it must have been a very tiny, stray splinter. But has sufficed. Kat is dead. ' Baumer cannot believe that Kat is dead: 'Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move around, and then turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. ' Baumer is devastated by Kat's death and is the last of the five friends. Baumer is the last to die.

There were some comforts for the soldiers during the war. There were moments of peace and tranquillity for the for the men, as they lay out in the meadow: 'Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer. We read letters and newspapers and smoke. ' Not all aspects of the war were awful. Sometimes the soldiers managed to acquire extra food: 'I think I must be dreaming; he has two loaves of bread under his arm and a blood-stained sandbag full of horseflesh in his hand.

The soldiers are amazed at what Kat has brought here and cannot believe it as they hardly have any food: "Real bread, by God, and still hot too?

" One night Baumer and Kat spot two geese in a garden and steal them. They are very close friends, so close they are almost brothers: 'We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. ' The geese taste much better than the army food: 'It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes while the other lies down and sleeps.

A grand smell gradually fills the hut. ' The soldiers never have any girls around them during the war, as no women fought in the war, so when they met some French girls they were excited. They had not experienced women for a long time before now: 'Her fingers close round my face. Close above me are her bewildering eyes, the soft brown of her skin and red lips. ' Sensuous language is used here so the reader can imagine the scene. The soldiers have sex with the women, and Baumer hopes it will make him happy and forget about the war: But then I feel the lips of the little brunette and press myself against them, my eyes close, I want it all to fall from me, war and terror and grossness, in order to awaken young and happy' There is relief for the reader as the atmosphere is very different from the battle scenes, and a change from killing and brutality.

Leave provides respite for the soldiers. Leave is short, but it is an opportunity to get away from the front line: 'Below there are cyclists, lorries, men; it is

a grey street and a grey subway;- it affects me as though it were my mother. This has a sad feeling to it, and Baumer feels sadness at this point. 'I imagined leave would be different from this. Indeed, it was different a year ago. It is I of course that have changed in the interval. There lies a gulf between that time and to-day. ' There is a touch of poignancy here and Baumer reflects on how life has changed for him. The writer uses a style which adds impact to the novel. The style helps the reader imagine what the writer is writing about. The imagery complements the subject matter to add impact.

The descriptions are often impersonal and detached, painting a vivid picture in the reader's mind, usually when the scenes are horrific: 'We lay the hip bare. It is one mass of mincemeat and bone splinters. ' This description is easy to imagine and adds impact because of the extent of the horrific injuries. The reader is deeply saddened by all the deaths and injuries, and the writer's style adds poignancy. The writer's style heightens the reader's aesthetic sense. Beauty is perceived, yet this style also has the totally opposite effected and gives the reader a heightened awareness of ugliness.

The style throws things into complete contrast: It glides past the western windows with its villages, their thatched roofs like caps, pulled over the white-washed, half-timbered houses, its cornfields, gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the slanting light, its orchards, its barns and old lime trees. ' This is an example of descriptive language used to portray beauty. 'Here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere

else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human limb. Over there lies a body with nothing but a piece of the underpants on one leg and the collar of the tunic around its neck. Otherwise it is naked and the clothes are hanging up in the tree. '