“All quiet in the western front”
My personal response
All quiet in the western front is a novel that make me feel lots of different emotions, but it also help me to understand and realise all the mental damage that almost every soldier had been through. I liked this novel because it gives you a clear view of what exactly is happening, it give you the details that you need to make clear images in your mind to get a better understandings of what is happening. “the rats have become much numerous lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition.”(p. 102) it tells sabot the unhygienic conditions they were.” “Almost every man has had his bread gnawed” (p.102).
Paul Bäumer, for me was really concerning that the novel is based on something that could happened in reality. Just imagining all the pain, all the suffer that all soldiers and families had suffered in that time, make me feel sad, confused, and even nervous or anxious. Paul’s story made feel sympathy for him, he had lost every thing and everyone all motivation of living had almost gone, after war he found war as a non sense.
He started to realise what had he done and question himself “why?” Without real motivation in life. “But our commanders are dead, we cannot help them, they have the rest-and who knows what is waiting for us? We will make ourselves comfortable and sleep, and eat as much as we can stuff into our bellies, and drink it and smoke so that hours are another wasted. Life is short.”(p. 139) all this paragraph made me see the emocional emptiness that they could felt. This made me realise how hard thing ge when war ends, all survivors soldiers are destroyed, I’m not talking about the physical damages im talking about the mental damages that war left of them, the traumas, the new fears. Most of can’t live their normal life because of all the traumas war had left.
That was the most concerning thing that the novel left in me.
This novels make you realise all the real conditions that the soldiers lived in. It’s really shocking seeing how difficult the things were, compare to now days.