The Impact Of The 20th Century On German Literature

Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front has a central theme of the harsh realities of war and a general negative attitude toward the subject. This attitude is synonymous of other war poems such as Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and War Is Kind by Stephen Crane; however, the attitudes are revealed differently in all three pieces through each respective author’s use of diction, imagery, and tone.

East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

The Roman poet Horace famously wrote, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” Many have pondered these words, the meaning of which being, “It is sweet and fitting to die for your country.” In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, German soldiers begin to realize that these words may not be as perspicacious as they appear. In the first five chapters of the novel, the ideas of war being noble and soldiers gallant are quickly thrown out the window as the reader is introduced to France’s notorious front lines during the First World War. Remarque uses a shocking first person narrative and realistic tone to show the reader that in reality, soldiers are nothing more than children who have gone to fight without the faintest of ideas

World War I is a War where many lives were lost and got many people sick in the mind because of the brutality of war. All Quiet Of The Western Front and the song “Dulce Et Decorum Est” both show Horrors Of War. Know ones how bad people in the war suffer until they're in it. In the book All Quiet Of The Western Front shows Horror of war “Kemmerich is dead, Haie Westhus is dying. Martens has no legs anymore”(Remarque 45). When all the soldiers friends die it makes the others feel nervous and rethinking about them entering the war. In the song “Dulce Et Decorum Est” it shows horror of war “Many had lost their boots but limped on, blood-shod”(Owen) The second piece of evidence that shows Horror Of War in the book is All Quiet Of The Western Front

In the opening chapter, Paul Baumer, the narrator, recalls how schoolteachers, such as his own, persuaded their bright-eyed students to put on the German colors. Paul’s teacher, Kantorek, taught his students the importance of the war as he instilled in them the values of nationalism and patriotism. Everyday, he sprouted war propaganda at them in “long lectures” (Remarque 11). He glamorized the war telling his students that they were “the Iron Youth” (Remarque 18) and that “duty to one’s country is the greatest thing” (Remarque 13). Consequently, his students left class enlisted in the war one by one “until the whole of the class went” (Remarque 11). When the students left the comforts of home to volunteer for the war, they valued their country above all else and were prepared to face their own death as doing so lined up with what they believed in.

Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front perspectives of war are explored through multiple avenues; such as the characterisation of Kantorek, the Assistant Headmaster and multiple literary techniques. Additionally, “Dulce et Decorum est” by Wilfred Owen explores similar perspectives, deviating from the archetypal representation of war to display the ignorance of the home-front to the realities of war, and the contrast in views between the front line and the home-front. In unison, the texts exhibit the devastating effects of war upon prospective, serving and returning soldiers.

Reading was a very popular thing to do back during the 1920’s. Before radio and television existed almost all people gained knowledge of the wider world and current events through books and literature. Literature contributed to society a lot more in the 1920’s than it did today. Many authors contributed to the learning and shaping of minds young and old by writing books that would define the time period. Some of these authors were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and T.S. Elliot. They defined and shaped the 1920’s by their writings and literature.

It is oftentimes the most difficult route to challenge what is popular in a society, for this struggle commonly leads to social gaps and divisions. In All Quiet on the Western Front, by Remarque, Paul feels this internal struggle as he holds differing ideas from the majority on war. In our society and in Paul’s, glory is given to war and honor falls upon those who have fought in the war. Contrasting, Paul feels that war is barbaric and trusts more and more in this belief as he sees the horrors of World War I from the front lines. As he and his classmates were encouraged to fight in the war by their teacher, Kantorek, Paul explains, “There were thousands of Kantoreks, all of whom were convinced that they were acting for the best” (12). This

War is demeaning and destructive to its participants (Eksteins 336), the theme Remarque evidences with All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul is meant to represent every soldier who fought in World War I. The experience of a German soldier was no different from that of any other soldier. War is universal to the individual soldier (Eksteins 337). Bäumer and his friends are misguided by their professor Kantorek and his patriotic rhetoric to volunteer for the German army. Now that they are at war, Paul sees “with [his] young, awakened [he] saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation of personality” (Remarque 22). Remarque accuses his society of destroying charity, love, humor, beauty, and individuality for the war (Eksteins 337). The horrors they witness during the war psychologically and emotionally affect them to where they feel isolated from their friends and family at home. When he is at home on leave, he finds it hard to speak to his mother. “Here I sit and there you are lying; we have so much to say, and we shall never say it” (Remarque 184). Even though his mother whom he is so close to is right there, he is unable to speak to her because of the vice grip it has on

Published in 1989, Modris Eksteins’ book, “Rites of Spring” argues that World War I, with Germany specifically as a catalyst, is the turning point of modernism. As Eksteins explains it, World War I was the final battle between the old world and the new, modern, world. To put it simply: England and her allies represented the old ways, while Germany and her allies represented new ways. Eksteins believed that the end of the nineteenth century was filled with urges for modernism with Germany leading the way as the “modernist nation par excellence of our century” Throughout the three acts of his novel, Eksteins continues to address how Germany, and both world wars, managed to battle the old ways of the nineteenth century and as a result continue into the twentieth century with humanity completely disillusioned as a whole.

Fahrmeir, A. "Book Review: The Emancipation Of Writing. German Civil Society In The Making, 1790S-1820S". German History 22.2 (2004): 268-270. Web.

In the year of 1916, Paul Bäumer, a 19 year old German volunteer in the Great War, sits with his comrades laughing and smiling bitterly at the letter their old schoolmaster wrote them. Their old schoolmaster preached them into joining yet knows nothing of war himself. They laugh at how he calls them “The Iron Youth” (Remarque, 16) because they were never iron, and they no longer feel like the youth. The war has taken that from them. They did not have time to make lives before the war. They will not have lives after the war. To these soldiers, nothing can fix the rest of the world’s ignorant bliss; nothing can make anyone else understand. They are lost, deprived of lives, of family, of anything but “despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality

Before the 20th Century, literature was pretty straightforward; the narrators were reliable, the timelines were linear, and the perspective was clear, but then somebody got the idea to mix it up. This is how we got books such as The Great Gatsby and one of our class texts, Orlando. For some, this was a startling and uncomfortable transition from what used to be considered the, “normal” format which was very up front in terms of structure and voice. Others found it to be more exciting and, while it was still weird and unsettling for those people, it forced people to think more about what the books were trying to communicate, instead of just being handed the message; they had to work for it. This has become one of the leading reasons that societies are encouraged to read; if you read a book that forces you to think, your mind becomes stronger and this promotes an increase in intelligence and creativity.

            While Marxist critics must admit that they themselves are helpless to avoid the effects of hegemony, the critical project of Marxist literary criticism remains steadfastly committed to the attempt to identify and understand the mediating contexts in which the forces of hegemony exert pressure on a text, its author, and its audience. These contexts manifest themselves within specific historical, economic, political, cultural, etc... conditions. In order to discover such contexts, a work of art cannot be uprooted from the specific temporal circumstances in which it is read or created and regarded as an isolated purely original entity. Literature, for better or worse, is mired in history.