Paul And His Fellow War example essay topic

Keep It Should All Quiet on the Western Front be appraised again this year as part of the curriculum for our high school students? Of many words, yes would be the correct response because this novel has much value within its words. All Quiet on the Western Front by Enrich Maria Remarque has many themes that give the reader a direct relation to life as presented in the book. Changes of the human spirit from war, and views on death are two of the thought-provoking themes portrayed. The views on change of the deteriorating human spirit from the actions of war are presented throughout the entire novel. At the beginning, nationalist feelings are presented through the pride of Paul and his schoolmates.

However, at the end of the book it is apparent how pointless confrontational war really is. All Quiet on the Western Front is a literary masterpiece that significantly helps the reader to understand the effects of war. The novel best shows the attitudes of the soldiers both before and during the Great War. Before the war there are high morals and growing nationalist feelings. During the war nevertheless, the soldiers discover the trauma that those sentiments brought.

They discover that it is a waste of time as their hopes and dreams of life fly further away. After Be hm became Paul's first deceased schoolmate, Paul realized that war was inhumane and viewed the older generation bitterly, particularly Kantor ek, the teacher who convinced Paul and his classmates to join the military. The reason for this judgment was not due to the sudden change of Paul's view on superiors, but the burden that was placed on him from combat. Paul quickly notices that his life is being undermined by something that could have been prevented. At one point he states, We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink and smoke so that hours are not wasted.

Life is short. Paul tells the reader that warfare has directly changed a man's will, and has made him adapt to the harshest of circumstances. These changes that Paul and other war victims encounter bring the relevance of the story to the reader and can be compared to the aspects of a more normal life. Thus the combination of the fictional plot with harsh reality of the human experience is one great quality this book has, and is an excellent justification for keeping it in the curriculum. The views on death that the soldiers contain is also a significant theme in Remarque's masterpiece.

We look at death to be the ultimate ending, or the worst conclusion, but Paul and his fellow war-hardened soldiers find themselves in the unusual position of being comfortable with their destiny. As the soldiers are subjected to the destruction of war, they become mentally tortured. Consequently, silence comes to signal death, a seemingly better alternative to shells and shrapnel flying by your body. When they take shelter in the graveyard, artillery rounds explode all around them; the living hide in coffins and the dead are thrown from their graves. The destructive power is so great that even the fundamental differences between life and death become blurred. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war, is what Paul concludes after being mentally warped from the agony of war.

This quote is the gateway into truth, which gives the reader the impression that to the soldiers, death does not matter. The nonchalant way the soldiers act while others are being destroyed right in front of them is the giveaway that death to soldiers is just another undeniable fact of war. Therefore the profound changes that the experience cause upon Paul and his friends gives a new meaning and to death. As students read the greatest war novel of all time, they will realize these meaningful themes. Personal ideologies that began with pride and ended with agony amplify the meaning that they gain from the reading. The changes of human spirit, and the altered view of death are just two out of countless key themes in All Quiet on the Western Front.

The granted appraisal of this book would surely have a great impression upon the students who will benefit from reading such a classic work, and give them a critical look at how human history and individual lives can change simultaneously and dramatically.