All the quiet model essays on the western front 1 From ancient times to the present, there are many literary works describing war, including Homer's epic and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, war and peace, farewell to weapons, and even the memoirs of World War II written by British Prime Minister Churchill. It is these works that make us modern people who live in peacetime understand what a real war is more indirectly and intuitively!
All quiet on the western front is such a work. This story happened during the First World War. The book does not describe the battle scenes on a large scale. On the contrary, the author remarque shows the cruelty of the whole war from the perspective of an ordinary soldier Paul from different details. I feel particularly depressed after reading the whole book. Just because of the cruel war, it destroyed everything beautiful.
Remarque wrote in the preface: Since the 20th century, mankind has experienced two world wars. If the Second World War was a contest between justice and evil caused by Hitler's personal ambition, and then caused the counterattack of all countries in the world, then the First World War was an out-and-out farce: several great powers attacked each other for the hegemony of the world and eventually evolved into a world war. Unlike the soldiers who spontaneously went to the front to defend their country in World War II, the young people in World War I were completely coaxed into the battlefield by their own country. Like young people in World War II, they fought for the country, but this "fighting for the country" was not spontaneous, but was bewitched by the authorities at that time, so they were pushed to the battlefield and fought for the ridiculous interests of the authorities. Everything they owned was destroyed in this battle, leaving no trace.
Paul Boymer, the hero, and his comrades-in-arms were originally classmates, a group of ordinary European youths, and they all joined the war only because of the outbreak of the war. Civilized society has become a brutal slaughterhouse, and the whole world is full of shadows and despair. In order to survive, they had to take up arms and fight hard. At the beginning of the novel, Paul and his comrades are described in a relatively relaxed style. However, the troops suffered heavy losses, and Paul saw his comrades fall one by one, but there was nothing he could do. When he personally killed his first enemy since he joined the war, the huge impact of the war made him completely collapse! This is the terrible thing about war: before you realize it, it will crush you mentally.
As a young man who has just grown up and is about to usher in a new life, who doesn't want to live a stable and happy life? However, when the war broke out, all this was disrupted. With the heat of the war, Paul's comrades-in-arms fell one after another, which was a great blow to him. In the chapter "Allow Paul to go home to visit relatives", we can clearly see that the young man was tortured by the war and his temperament changed greatly. He tried to return to the normal life before the war, but found that he could no longer integrate into it. It is a tragedy that a young man full of hope for life was defeated by artillery bombardment.
"War has ruined everything for us, and we are no longer young. We don't want to attack the world again. We are deserters. We avoid ourselves and our world. " Paul's feelings are thought-provoking. Once beautiful, now it has become dark, and the world has collapsed and fragmented. What's all this about? This is war! It's that damn, cursed war!
"All Quiet on the Western Front" When I was reading Model No.2 Primary School, I read the novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" written by German writer remarque according to his own war experience. This left me with a great shock. The story of this book is set in the last two years of World War I, and the book focuses on the cruelty and horror of war. There is neither grand military capacity nor magnificent scenes in the author's works. Only poisonous fog and smoke, broken limbs and arms, a pool of blood in the trenches, brains on the walls and intestines between branches. It makes people read as if they were there, full of fear and hatred for war.
But this book is neither an indictment of war nor an inner confession. It just wants to tell future generations that there were some people who wandered in the evil smoke and finally fell quietly.
The author remarque directly participated in a war, the First World War in human history, through the role of the hero Boymer. As a participant in the war, he described all kinds of injuries caused by the whole war. The story of Boymer's comrade-in-arms around us has described the terrible war to us. Reading somewhere, we may imagine that we have become one of them, and even can't help designing a scene of death for ourselves, but the way of death won't make much difference. It can also be said that their inner fear of death is extremely calm, because fear does not reduce their possibility of being hit by bullets and shrapnel. Fear sometimes accelerates their death. The soldier who ran out of the trench is an example.
Perhaps because I am a paramilitary, I have an instinctive sensitivity to war. My heart will tremble when I see the scene of bullets and bodies everywhere described in the novel. This is war, and death itself is the fate of soldiers. When a person is in a state of war, death can happen at any time. As the book says, even if I stand in calm water, far from the center of the whirlpool, I already feel its suction slowly, mercilessly and irresistibly sucking people in the past. This gravity is death. For a soldier, the earth is usually of special and great significance to them. Maybe that's their best support, their closest relatives and their best guarantee. When the fire comes, they bury their bodies, limbs and faces deeply in the soil, because if they hold on to the soil tightly, they can only live for even ten seconds. In the war, a soldier can only really live if he survives 1000 accidents.
At the end of the story, Paul and his seven partners experienced death, loneliness, fear and despair in the cruel trench life before they realized the reality and horror of war. However, everything is too late! None of these young people with boiling blood survived in the end. In the German military report, just a short sentence "Everything is calm on the western front" obliterated all the cruel facts hidden in the illusion of peace.
In fact, in the face of war death, how powerful words can be, at least you can't talk. Only those who have personally experienced the war can truly understand the unspeakable pain. Do you want these people who miraculously survived the war to return to normal life? Pain and blood have penetrated into their bone marrow. In fact, when they set foot on that battlefield, they were doomed to break away from peace. Their eyes have already become panicked in the smoke, and this excessive fatigue also makes the empty eyes seem meaningless. Although they survived, in fact, they have disappeared with their comrades-in-arms who fought bloody battles together and their youth in that war era.