All Quiet on the Western Front -symbol analysis Essay Example

lose clarity of purpose and goals, coming unsure of what Is truth and what Is falsehood. Paul Illustrates this theme of destructiveness of war by expressing; "[f]rather on the mist ends.

Here the heads become figures: coats, trousers, and boots appear out of the mist as from a milky pool" (57). The pool of Pall's mind pollutes with the war and its violence. The mist conceals the specific identity of men and allows only glimpses of soldiers, not men, taking away personal identity and destroying individualism.

The demands of war insist that men destroy their personal views and replace them with survival. Water, which can cleanse, can also conceal the desperation of war. Paul struggles to find shelter during a bombardment and "[w]whenever a shell whistles [h]e duck [his] head under the water.

After [h]e ha[s] done [that] a dozen times, [he is] exhausted" (240). Paul hides in the water to stay alive. It wraps around him, securing a safe shield from destruction and probability of death.

Water symbolizes the force of war and how It destroys Individual thought, drawing people Into Its destructive path.

Under water, caught In Its clutches, Paul loses direction. Water offers sanctuary but comes at a high cost. Paul loses his certainty of anything other than survival. Killing other imagery demonstrates Juxtaposition of thought and action in war. The soldiers must kill or be killed.

Someone will be totally destroyed, pulled into a swirl of violence and loss. Hall 3 Armature, effectively conveys water imagery to expose the harsh and devastating power of the war.

Additionally, Armature employs nature imagery to help further express the chaos Near causes. The beauty

of nature remains undeniable. However, when described in a context of war, nature presents a powerful image of destruction.

Paul and the men 'IEEE traumatizing scenes after war, such as; "[I]n the branches dead men are hanging. A naked soldier is squatting in the fork of a tree, he still has his helmet on, otherwise he is entirely unclad. There is only half of him sitting up there, the top half, the legs are missing" (208).

One of nature's preeminent features, trees, hold death.

Ere haunting image off man without legs, hanging like a decoration Jolts with its 'lenience. Instead of nature offering life, it offers death, and even holds it up for the rest of the men to witness. The destruction of a single soldier represents the extraction of all the soldiers. Being cut in half, hanging in a tree, tossed aside as Nasty illustrates blatant disregard for life. The soldiers face constant reminders that life has precious little meaning.

Many have died. Many will die.

Life holds little 'alee in war, but resources such as land, matter a great deal. Paul expresses how much the Earth means to a soldier, "[w]hen he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his error and cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever" (55).

Soldiers face isolation and danger. Nature, with an

earthy embrace, remains Hall 4 the only constant in soldier's war experience.

However, the earth can also serve as a grave, the very place where life ends. The land will only shield soldiers for as long as they can move forward in destruction of others. Staying low and close to the ground aids in survival. Soldiers must use the earth as a shield from death.

Exposure to the enemy, however briefly, results in death. Only by laying low, close to earth, can a soldier survive the trench warfare.

Armature illustrates the destruction caused by Near through the men and through nature as when; " [t]he brown earth, the torn blasted earth, with a greasy shine under the sun's rays; the earth is the background of this restless gloomy world of automatons..

. We stagger forward, and into our pierced and shattered souls bores the torturing image of the brown earth with the greasy sun and the convulsed and dead soldiers" (1 15). The impact of war imparts on tot men and the earth. Nothing escapes the brutality of war. Its destructive path Nears down everything in its reach.

Nothing remains untouched. The scorched earth, littered with death, becomes oily with blood. The color of life has bled out of the earth and the men. Thus, images of nature further exemplify the overall consequences of war. Animals are also powerful symbols in All Quiet on the Western Front. Throughout the novel, a variety of animals illustrate the destructiveness of war, depicting itself on its forelegs and drags itself round in a circle like a merry-go-round; quitting, it drags round in circles.

.. Apparently its back is broken" (64).