"All Quiet On The Western Front".

Essay by brainiacJunior High, 9th grade June 2003

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All Quiet On The Western Front

Prologue

'It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped it shells were destroyed by war.'

Is this the sole experience of the reader of the book? Is there more to this book than merely a tragic story.

All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of a man's growth from childhood to manhood accelerated by the war. It portrays the innocence of a generation taken from their safe classroom cocoon, and made some of them against their will, to be thrust into a brutal world of death and destruction which few would come through unscathed. Typified in the following paragraph " But in the end he let himself be persuaded, because he would have made things impossible for himself for not going. Maybe others felt the same way he did; but it wasn't easy to stay out of it because at the time even our parents used the word 'coward' at the top of a hat".

Like it was told many had no choice, they were pressured into doing it. To be perfectly honest nobody knew what it was going to be like, 'a trip to France' propaganda was a deadly right. As you can see it is more than a tragic story, it's also a story of youths having to take responsibility for their own transition into adult life, when they realized those they held in authority were not going or not able to help them make the painful journey. This allowed them to achieve great personal growth once they came to terms with the fact that they were on their own and ultimately their life and their comrades' life relied on them being able to make independent decisions. This is shown...