Question 4: Describe at least one physical setting in the text
Explain how the message was conveyed
“For us lads of eighteen, they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future.”
Erich Maria Remarque became a world renowned author, even after a century has passed since World War 1 he is still one of the most influential, most vivid, most admired, and most widely read literary about war of the last hundred years his writing showed everyone the truth of war it is not nice it is disgusting and gruesome what the soldiers on the front lines had to witness.
Erich Maria Remarque is a German-born novelist his landmark novel is called all quiet on the western front based on his experience in the German imperial army during World War 1
In all quiet on the western front, Remarque shows the setting of the front lines and the importance it shows as Paul and his comrades struggle to survive battling the harsh environments they’ve been thrown into during World War 1 as they walk through the field of battle to step over and step on dead bodies of their comrades and their enemies this just proves the gruesomeness of the novel and what Erich Maria Remarque was trying to prove during WW1 In the German front lines building on these factors you can already tell that Remarque is using the imagery of the horrors of war.
They survive one day at a time, lying in wait for the enemy to attack or an order for them to advance behind enemy lines they sit and lie in the mud along the narrow trenches extending for miles full of craters from explosion from the explosive shells:
“ The moment that the first shells whistle over and the air is rent with the explosions, there is suddenly in our veins.
Remarque describes the horror of war and the front lines and what they have done to the soldiers, how it has changed them making them inhuman more animalistic showing their killer instinct when they step onto the frontline. It is nothing to joke about, after all Paul and his friends have been through the dead bodies have been normalized to these boys heads they don’t freak out or anything it’s a dead body plain and simple if they have to kill they would without hesitation, that is when they show their animal instincts they couldn’t care less if they died, but they will not roll over and give up they will fight to stay alive another day alive is another meal on their plate in service to their country but in truth they don’t fight for their country they fight for survival in conclusion the front lines are not something that are good they are not to be shouted in glory and victory for their country the way Remarque showed off the gruesome imagery shows that war is not glorious its vile and gruesome he showed the horror of war and the front lines are a repulsive place.
