Unit 5B: All Quiet on the Western Front

Context: “Breaking bread” or eating together is a way that people bond. The ravenous soldiers are just getting some food in the opening of the novel, after heavy battle on the frontlines of the World War I. Getting a decent meal while in the trenches was nearly impossible.

Chapter 2: “Kemmerick’s Boots”

Context: Paul meditates on his innocent past before he was a soldier, comparing it to his life today. He describes the soldiers’ training and the buildup of their camaraderie. Finally, he describes his painful visit to his dying friend Kemmerich, whose boots come to signify the harsh reality of war.

Pre-reading Activity

Describe the scene in the photograph in detail.
Why are the soldiers missing their shoes and socks?
Examine the rest of the photos from Atlantic’s online WWI exhibit and write at least two details that struck you and why they impacted you.

British Highlander Soldiers in Photo by Brett Butterworth (1916), from http://www.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/wwi/wwisoldiers/

Chapter 3: “Gas Masks and Coffee”

Context: This chapter opens with Paul and his comrades eyeing the new recruits. The chapter then focuses in on two people—Kat, with his incredible ability to scrounge up anything the soldiers desperately need and Himmelstoss, their drill-sergeant whom they despise. The young men also meditate on the purpose of the war and when or how it might end.

Trench Warfare in the words and images of World War I soldiers

Audio Recording: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-trench-life

Trench warfare in images: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/10-photos-of-life-in-the-trenches

Trench Interactive Experience: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/MwXR5svcf515Iw

Field service postcard sent by Corporal Albert Dudley Hitchcox to his sister Bertha Hitchcox while he was on active duty during the First World War.

Link to original images and text:

https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/field-service-postcard/

This is an example of a form-style postcard with pre-printed sentences, known informally by the soldiers as a ‘whiz bang’ after the German shells that seemed to arrive with no warning. They provided an easy way for soldiers to keep in touch with loved ones. Writers scratched out phrases that were not applicable and were warned that any additional information would result in the card’s destruction by military censors.

The letters that follow can be found in the British National Archives: Letters from the Trenches

Chapter 4: “This is the front, now we are within its embrace.”

Context: When this chapter opens, Paul and the other soldiers are back on duty on the front. Though they are now in the rear laying out barbed wire, they begin to grow more concerned as the British weaponry blasts nearby throughout the night. Paul describes the experience of being in a warzone and how it affects the young men, emotionally, physically and mentally. As they come upon a cemetery, a bombardment begins, followed by a gas attack, leading to both injuries and deaths before the end of the night.

Pre-reading Activity: Evaluate the “Ready to Fight” from Eyewitness World War I. Then describe at least two artifacts that reveal details of life on the Western Front. Describe the object/image and explain what it shows about the soldiers’ lives on the front.

Chapter 5: “A soldier with big boots and a full belly"

Context: This chapter opens with a battle between the men and the lice attacking them. The soldiers speculate on what they would do if the war ended, but seem incredulous that it will end. They have trouble imagining how they could possibly rejoin civilian life after what they have been through at war. Himmelstoss returns with a vengeance; rebellion and punishment ensue. Finally, there is a quiet intimate meal of goose between Kat and the narrator, Paul, as they listen to the background sounds of the violent front.

Pre-reading Activity: Review the document about trench realities. After reviewing the information taken from primary documents, reflect on the impact trench warfare must have had on the soldiers who returned home after World War I. These soldiers were fortunate to live, but many suffered life-long from the after effects of the war. How might these conditions, from this--so called "modern warfare"-- have changed the narrative of war from one of glory and duty to one of "anti-war," like many of the World War I poets and Remarque? Write at least a page using standard MLA formatting guidelines.

Chapter 6: “Forlorn like children and experienced like old men."

Context: This chapter presents violence on a new level, but also Paul’s quiet moments of reflection and meditation on his life and the war. The men face French soldiers face-to-face, killing young soldiers who look a lot like themselves. They try to help the frustratingly immature and poorly trained recruits. This section further develops the animal motif (pattern), with the soldiers becoming primal in a fight for survival. Paul, haunted by his past, feels unable to face it, feeling both helpless as a child and jaded as an old man. After a horrible battle in which the men defend their trenches against the enemy, the death and destruction leads only to the gain of a few hundred yards for the opposing side.

Pre-reading Activity: Read “Over the Top” from Eyewitness World War I pages (30-31). Then answer the following questions based on inferences from the reading and images.

World War I led to the deaths of over fifteen million soldiers. New war tactics made mass-casualty attacks part of the wartime norm, so each side built trenches. Explain the important role that the new technology of the machine gun played in the war and why this led to trench digging.
Explain why the Battle of the Somme led to over a million deaths.

Chapter 7: “Leave—A pause that makes everything after it so much worse.”

Context: This chapter opens with Paul and his soldiers getting an easy kitchen duty, but still feels too uneasy to relax when he’s away from the front line. The soldiers offer their bread and meat rations to some French women they meet and spend the night with them. Paul is then assigned leave and travels home, but he feels even more uncomfortable around civilians. He can’t really relate or open up to most of the people back home—parents, teachers, military trainers, etc. Remarque, the author, often displays this disconnect by juxtaposing Paul’s interior monologue (narrator’s thoughts) with the words that he says aloud.

Pre-Reading Media Activity: View the short video on the difference between shellshock and PTSD. What did you learn from the video?

Chapter 8: “A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies.”

Context: This chapter opens with Paul’s brief stay at the military training camp after his leave and before returning to fight on the Western Front. He is disturbed by the starving and sick prisoners of war (POWs) at the Russian prison camp, which is across the way from his military camp. He receives one final visit from his father and sister, which greatly pains him as they bring news of his mother’s worsening illness.

Pre-reading Activity: Read the poem,"The Next War," a sonnet written by a young soldier, Wilfred Owen, a British poet who died at age twenty-five in WWI. In a paragraph using the quoting we have been practicing (embedded quotes) write a paragraph response that answers both questions. Remember to cite a poem you use the authors last name and line numbers (Owen, line 4) or for the book you use the author's last name and page number (Remarque 56).

Describe how the poet personifies death through imagery, sensory detail. Provide details of at least three senses.

Pro-tip: Types of imagery are gustatory, olfactory, visual, tactile, and auditory.

Connect the poem’s perspective of war with that of Paul and his comrades. Provide at least one supporting quote from AQOTWF and one from the poem to support the parallels found.

Pro-tip: You need at least 5 quotes, one from all quiet and four from the poem. These quotes should fit into your own sentence and may only be one or two words.

The Next War

Out there, we walked, quite friendly up to Death,---

Sat down and ate beside him, cool and bland,---

Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.

We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,---

Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.

He's spat at us with bullets, and he's coughed

Shrapnel. We chorused if he sang aloft,

We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!

We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.

No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.

We laughed,---knowing that better men would come,

And greater wars: when every fighter brags

He fights on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Chapter 9: “I see you are a man like me.”

Context: Paul returns to camp outside the Western Front, comforted by his comrades. The Kaiser, the German emperor, visits the troops for an “inspection.” The men hear rumors that they will be moved to the Eastern Front of the war. After a bombardment, Paul becomes lost and is forced to hide for days in a shell-hole. He stabs a French soldier who jumps into the hole and watches him slowly die, feeling consumed by guilt.

Pre-reading Activity:

TED Talk on Moral Injury

1. What is Moral Injury? (You determine this based on what you hear.)

2. What are the causes of Moral Injury? (Defined in video, get the gist of the definition) (4:48)

3. What record the example of Moral Injury in Afghanistan. (5:56)

4. Since 1980, PTSD was the most used term to describe psychological issues resulting from war. Why in 2009 did the term Moral Injury come about? (7:15/ 9:22)

5. What symptoms regularly occur in an experience of moral injury? (7:59) (Record as many as you can.)

6. What protective factors helped to keep the Vietnamese soldiers from experiencing the same levels of Moral Injury as American soldiers after the Vietnam War? (10:57)

7. How many veterans are at risk for Moral Injury? (17:24)

8. What are some of the recommendations for what we can do to help? (15:40)

Moral Injury & Veterans: Read Address Moral Injury to Reduce Veteran Suicide Risk

and take notes about each section: Issue, Key Finding: Moral Injury and Suicide Risk, Moral Injury and PTSD, Implications, Ways You Can Help

Did you know about Moral Injury? Do you know someone that might be suffering from a Moral Injury? After learning about the differences between Shell Shock and PTSD, how does this information better explain the different kinds of trauma experienced in war?

Post-reading Activity: Complete TPCASTT on The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy and read Chapter 12 from The Things They Carried, "The Man I Killed." Consider the following questions for discussion:

For "The Man I Killed"

When Tim O'Brien introduces the subject of "The Man I Killed," he does it with the following description. Why does he start here? Why use these details? "His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole, his eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, his nose was undamaged, there was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black hair was swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull," etc.
"The Man I Killed" describes fairly intimate aspects of the dead man's life. Where do these details come from? How can Tim O'Brien know them? What is going on here? "(From) his earliest boyhood the man I killed had listened to stories about the heroic Trung sisters and Tran Hung Dao's famous rout of the Mongols and Le Loi's final victory against the Chinese at Tot Dong. He had been taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He accepted this," etc.
For the remainder of the story O'Brien portrays himself as profoundly moved by this death: "Later Kiowa said, 'I'm serious. Nothing anybody could do. Come on, Tim, stop staring." What would be an accurate description of O'Brien's emotional state in this scene?

For Chapter 9 in All Quiet on the Western Front

Re-read page 212. How does Paul respond to the sound of his fellow soldiers and what does that reveal?
Re-read pages 214-216. How does Paul survive the bombardment?
Re-read pages 218-220. How is Paul affected by the dying French soldier? How and why does he try to comfort him?
Re-read pages 220-221. Explain the metaphorical “invisible dagger” Paul sees in the eyes of the French soldier.
Re-read pages 222-223. How does looking at the dead soldier remind Paul of the role of chance? How does he “bond” with the dead soldier?
Re-read pages 228-229. How and why does Paul feel differently about the dead French soldier after his comrades rescue him.

For "The Man He Killed"

What's the takeaway here? Is this an anti-war poem? Or is Hardy merely pointing out one of the downsides to war?
Aside from finding it "curious," how do you think this speaker really feels about having killed a man? Is he as casual about the whole thing as his words would seem to suggest? Or can you find any reason to think otherwise in the poem?
What's the effect of having this poem be written in a strict meter with a strict rhyme scheme? Does that sing-songy effect undercut the poem in any way, or is it just right? What makes you say so?
Why do you think this is a spoken poem? Where do we imagine this guy talking? Is he maybe at a bar with his real friends? Would that add anything to the poem?
Why did the speaker shoot the other guy, really? Can you find the true answer anywhere in the poem, or is it left open to interpretation?

Comparative Analysis

How are the three accounts similar?
In what ways do the accounts differ (at a fundamental level--not in one other people were there and witnessed it)?
Do the different mediums change the telling? How?
Which do you find to be the most powerful and why?
Are all of these anti-war? Explain your position with evidence.
Based on our understanding of shell shock, PTSD, and Moral Injury, what is each account addressing? How did you make that determination?

Chapter 10: “A hospital alone shows what war is.”

Context: This chapter opens in a new setting-- the soldiers are guarding a supply area in an abandoned village. After briefly experiencing the “good life” by indulging in fattening cooked foods, cigars and chocolate, they are transferred to a new location. They must evacuate another village, and in doing so, Paul and Kropp are injured. They are then sent to a hospital, causing trouble with some of the nuns who care for them. In the hospital, the Paul witnesses and experiences a slew of new horrors. Paul sees the hospital as a symbol of the senseless of war, meditating on the manner in which the youth have been betrayed by the older generation.

Chapter 11: “Wild, tormenting rumours of an armistice and peace are in the air.”

Context: The war seems to be nearing an end and the men are tortured by the fantasy that it will be over any day. However, they must still fight. Detering plans a kind of illicit escape, but is thwarted. The German soldiers are overcome by the enemy’s efficient use of tanks and machinery. Finally, when things couldn’t get any bleaker, Paul’s closest friend, Kat, is injured and Paul must carry him to safety.

Chapter 12: “Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more.”

Context: Paul is recovering on a two-week rest period after swallowing some poison gas. During the interim, he reflects on the “Lost Generation” of he and his fellow soldiers. They all know the war will end very soon, but still the fighting drags on. As he takes in the beauty of the trees around him, he knows that he has lost both fear and hope. A brief closing page switches narration, calling the attention of the reader.

Topics

Nature of Power (How others control others)
Dehumanization (as brought on by war)
Horrors of war; war is devastating and destructive
Arguments against war
Loss of Innocence
Alienation/ disillusionment of a generation (“The Lost Generation”)
People are the same everywhere.

Page updated

Report abuse