Chapter 6 Literary Reflection

The Horrors Of War

I never knew the horrors of war until I truly felt like I was there. All Quiet On The Western Front brought me into the world of war. I never knew what it was actually like to be there, out on the battle field fighting for your county during World War 1. Chapter Six of All Quiet On The Western Front connected me to the characters and their struggles. Towards the end of the chapter, I experienced some of the most descriptive, yet disgusting, writing I have ever read. The injuries that these soldiers had were described horribly well, it creeped me out. When Fitz told us the details of All Quiet On The Western Front I was expecting a book as boring as the Emoji Movie. He gave us a a short overview, one specific thing that I remember is him saying that it is going to be very gory and has many bloody scenes. Let me tell you, Fitz was not wrong. I am not one to get weak at the sight of blood so I knew I could handle this book. I have found this book to be very interesting and Chapter Six has stood out to me as one of the best. It is a pretty long chapter with a lot of battle scenes and has two major themes, comradery and horror.  Chapter Six has taught me a lot about comradery. The soldiers that went out to war always had each others backs, they were even risking their lives to save other soldiers. At home these men may have been strangers to each other, but out on the battlefield they were like brothers, always willing to do what they can to save others. 

“We explain the difference between the fuse-length of the enemy bombs and our own; we put them wise to the sound of gas shells;—show them all the tricks that can save them from death.”

Going into this project I had no idea what it was remotely like to be at war, fighting for your country with people you don’t even know. Chapter six summed up for me the good and the bad of war. Although there really is no good side to war, I learned about the comradeship between the soldiers and horrors of war.

Sam Dean

Memories With Friends

Friends are always ready for a good time

Good friends are like stars, you don’t always see them, but you know they are there

-Unknown

Good friends always manage to keep me away from boredom. Sometimes best friends can be family, one of my best friends is my cousin Griffin. Griffin and me are always there for each other, but on a less serious note, we sure know how to have a good time. We are are like two peas in a pod, we have a very similar personality and sense of humor. We are like the perfect joke creators when around each other. It was this weekend, Easter weekend. The whole family was at our family house in New Hampshire so we could keep our tradition of celebrating Easter together. Right from the moment when I arrived and saw my cousins and family I knew this was going to be an awesome weekend. After greeting my family, I went around and looked for Griffin who is one of my cousins. He was at what we call the dog house, it is basically a smaller house across the driveway from the main house. I saw him and ran over and said hi. We went to the main house and started to mess around. This weekend was going to be great. After many hours of messing around, telling jokes, painting eggs, playing outside, and having fun it started to get late. We went up into the loft And chilled for a long time, messing around and laughing so much my stomach started hurting. As it got really late and most people were asleep we went into our room. We were not tired so we decided we would do something. We wanted to watch a scary movie and we chose to watch IT. We couldn’t find the movie anywhere for free so we decided to go on YouTube and watch these scary short films, like very short movies. After the first one, we started getting a little creeped out and we got a little scared because we were in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed in the corner of a very dark room. We made a fort by attaching blankets to the corners of the bunk and had our own little capsule. We watched countless amounts of those scary videos. It started to get very late and we were tired. We put a show on his computer and laid there half asleep. I noticed that Griffin was asleep so I closed the computer and went over to my bed. That was a very good night. This whole weekend was amazing. On Sunday, after the scary movie night, we had Easter egg hunts and ate a whole lot of candy. I had so much fun. I wish times like these could last forever, but they can’t. This weekend I laughed so much that I might be all out of laughs for the week. As expected, we all had to leave eventually and parted ways back to our homes. This weekend was so much fun and I shared some great moments with one of my best friends who happens to also be my cousin. Although I did not get much sleep and am now very tired because of it, it was all worth it in the end. I always look forward to family weekends in New Hampshire for moments like these. I have made some great memories with my friends and it is important to spend time with them. Sometimes it can take my mind off the struggles in life.

Ideas For The Discussion

What I would really enjoy to do is to talk about something recent, like talk about our weekends and what we are going to do this weekend, or have some good conversations while playing skat, however, I am afraid those options might not be possible. If we are going to talk about the book, I would like to talk about the differences we have found when Paul is at war compared to when he is on his leave and is back at home. I want to talk about how things are so different for all those soldiers and why it is nothing like their normal lives. I look forward to class and hope that this conversations will go in the skat direction, but if not I am ready to talk about chapter 7.

Sam Dean

Group Reflection On Chapter Four

By Parker, Sam, and Denny

“Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of  joy you must have somebody to divide it with.”

Everybody deals with pain and loss, it is those around us that give us comfort. In the book, All Quiet On The Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, the soldiers face a lot of pain and loss during the war. They have to be there for each other and look out for one another. In the story there are a multitude of moments where someone needs help and receives it. There are also a few moments where someone is in pain and someone supports them and tries to help. It was on the battlefield, bomb shells were flying and soldiers were dying left and right. There were men scrambling for their lives, running towards shell holes and jumping in them, after all, a bomb never hits the same spot twice.  The explosions and gun fire were lessening as injured soldiers laid down in shelters. All of a sudden there was something, not bombs or gun fire “GAAAS- GAS” soldiers shouted from alI angles.

“I look at Kat desperately, he has his mask on—I pull out mine, too, my helmet falls to one side, it slips over my face, I reach the man, his satchel is on the side nearest me, I seize the mask, pull it over his head, he understands, I let go and with a jump drop into the shell-hole.”

They were in the middle of a war. He could have just left the guy there and not help him, but instead he went out of his way to help out his comrade and put a gas mask on him. There are so many soldiers dying that they could have the attitude of just being like “this one guys life doesn’t matter, I don’t need to help him” but obviously he decided to help out. On the battlefield everyone is treated like family. Even if they are not friends, they would defend each other like brothers. So far, this book has displayed a lot of comradeship and showed us how important it is during battle.

Metacognition: 

I am glad I got to do this project with Denny and Parker. I am close friends with both of them so it went smoothly. We started off talking a little bit about what the theme was going to be and what we were going to write about. It did not take too long to come to a decision that we would write about loss and comradeship. It seemed to be a bit of a problem for us to divide the work quickly, but that was an obstacle we had to overcome. We consulted about what each section would be about and then did all the writing. From there everything went very smoothly. Parker put all the writing into type pad and we edited it. This assignment was fun and I enjoyed doing it. I hope to also do more assignments similar to this because it is a good teamwork and writing activity.

Sam Dean

All Quiet On The Western front Socratic Ideas

“Tough times never last, but tough people do”

-Robert H. Schuller

    During our Socratic seminar on chapter three, I would like to discuss what happens behind the scenes during that war. The author tells us a lot about all sorts of games these soldiers play and jokes and pranks these soldiers make, they seem to make war much more fun then it seems (besides the fighting part). In chapter three, I believe it is mentioned a little bit about the older soldiers who know more about what they were doing teasing and messing with the “infants” who were really only two years younger than them. I find the adventures of these soldiers interesting and a little funny (again besides the death and fighting parts). There are many funny parts to this story, but there is also some very brutal parts to it. I would like to talk about those funny and messing around parts and how the soldiers use them to avoid thinking about the very bad parts. Some of those times would be when their friend would be dying right in front of them which was mentioned in the book. “It grows dark. Kemmerich’s face changes colour, it lifts from the pillow and is so pale that it gleams. The mouth moves slightly. I draw near to him. He whispers: “If you find my watch, send it home——.” This is one of the moments when a friend (or in even better words a comrade) is dying. This explains the sadness to the war. I have learned that those soldiers have managed to find happiness during hard times and that is what I would like to talk about during class.