Paul’s Empathy

by Parker And Jhonny 

People can only understand someone if you feel them in yourself, but empathy in chapter eight of All Quiet On The Western Front shows Paul the differences him and his enemy. Empathy shows Paul that the real enemy is the officers that tell the soldiers what to do like there just pawns in a chess game. This is because Paul and his enemy are really the same just normal men turned into beasts that are commanded to fight. This chapter has showed me that even the soldiers who have seen things unimaginable still can have feelings for others. Paul finds the Russians in a prison along side there camp. He sees there faces and feels sorry for them and feels sympathy almost as if he was in the cage.

“I take out my cigarettes, break each one in half and give them to the Russians. They bow to me and then light the cigarettes. Now red points glow in every face. They comfort me; it looks as though there were little windows in dark village cottages saying that behind them are rooms full of peace.”

Paul finds peace in helping the Russians. He gives them some of his food and cigarettes because he realizes that they are in similar circumstances to him and he feels empathy for what they are going through. The horror of war has changed the way Paul thinks about his life outside of war and on the front. It has changed the way he thinks about people. Thinking about others is not a skill you want to have while at war because next time he is faced with a decision between fighting and running he might run instead. Having feelings for other is one of the only things keeping Paul human. Empathy is necessary for a good life and I am interested to see where it takes Paul.

“

Bus Rides

by Parker Nagtegaal

Freinds will last you a life time. Me and Sam Dean have been going on the same bus since the fifth grade but we’ve never sat together until this year when the bus got so crowded that we couldn’t have our own seats. The bus in my opinion was always a very boring 45min-1hour wast of my time. But when me and Sam started sitting together I started to enjoy the bus a lot more. It was a lot of fun to talk and laugh with Sam. At this point I look forward to my bus ride at the end of the day because I have such a good time. I remember there was one time when I was only me, Micheal Mariani, Eduardo Tackas, and Sam on the bus. We were all alone (except for the bus driver). One of us was playing music (I forget who) and we all just started shouting the words to the song. Looking back I don’t know why it was so funny but in the moment us singing was the funniest thing that ever happened. We were all having a great time because instead of looking down on our phones for the whole bus ride we were interacting with each other. From the beginning of the year on me and Sam have gotten to be better and better friends and have had so much fun on  the bus with him. Im sad that next year I won’t be on the bus with him. But for the remainder of the year I will have fun bus rides and I will cherish ever single one. All the bus rides are experiences that I will never forget.

Family Helps

Parker Nagtegaal

Family will pick you up when you are down. In my family when I am sad that will crack a joke and make me laugh. When I was younger and I was going through some friend issues my aunt, uncle mom, and dad all comforted me and said it would get better. It was the afternoon of 2016 I didn’t have a lot of close friends at the time and I felt cut off from a lot of people. But I was at my aunt and uncles so I had to be happy. My mom told them about what happened and sure enough I started talking to them and they immediately made me happy. They made me laugh and told me about times when they were younger when they had very similar issues. This made me feel good and I knew that soon I would find people who I enjoyed being with. My family comforted me when I hadn’t done anything for them. I hadn’t done the same for them. I hadn’t helped them with a chore. All I did was be born and they gave me their love for no other reason then the fact that I needed it. That’s the best part about family there always there for you. My family said it would get better and it did.

6th Chapter

by Parker Nagtegaal

       War can tear people apart and turn them into something they aren’t. In the book All Quiet On The
Western Front all the characters go to fight on the front in chapter 6, this turns all of them in killing machines that only think about themselves and staying alive. 

      This makes perfect sense because in these life or death moments they face on the battlefield all the want is to make it out alive. “crouching like cats we run on, overwhelmed by this wave that bears us along, that fills us with ferocity, turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils”. When they see the horrors of the men and what they do to each other some go crazy and curl up in a corner like Himelstoss. He was scared of what he had seen and he was petrified with fear. In these horrific battle of loud bombs and charging into machine guns that are ready to mow down your whole army and all your comrades. This is pain I can only imagine that if I was put through I would take my own life having seen the terrors that they have. I would never be able to look at the word the same. These images would never leave my head.

       In these fights it’s just non stop charging towards the enemy getting mowed down, retreating and shooting down the charge enemy then you charge and repeat the process. This makes the soldiers monsters more than men. They don’t care for people they just kill. “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.” This is the sad reality of the toll it takes on these men.

      This chapter helped (or rather didn’t help because it was so horrifying) me to understand the terror that these me fight for. They don’t think about who (or what they are fighting for) they only think about keeping themselves alive.

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 didn’t do enough work on this, it’s as simple as that. I barely wrote a sentence, all I did was copy things into this typepad document. While it is hard to work as a group of three on a kinda small paragraph I still could have made myself more useful.

Group Reflection On Chapter Four

By Parker, Sam, and Denny

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 al 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” but obviously he decided to help out, because out on the battlefield, everyone is family. 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.

Socratic

Parker Nagtegaal

In Mr Fitzsimons English class tomorrow I want to talk about all the characters relationships with each other, Wether or not you would think that these characters would get along in real life and be friends or if they’re only getting along because of their circumstances being the same age in a war. I’m also curious to see how everyone feels about these kids having their lives taken from them by this war. I wonder if some people in our class will think that it’s ok, maybe even a good thing that this happened. Will anyone think that it’s necessary to have these kids serve. I would be curious to see their reasoning. I want to see what everyone thinks will happen when they go to the front or what will Hemorich say about what happened to him the previous night. Will he spare his pride and keep quiet or will he be desperate to find out who beat him while he was helplessly tied up. I have two personal questions, one why isn’t Kat a higher rank when he’s so smart. My second question is how do you move up in the ranks. I’m excited to hear what everyone has to say tomorrow, I’m also curious what other people’s questions will be. Will they look like mine or will they be stuff that I wouldn’t have thought of. All of my questions will hopefully be answered tomorrow in our seminar.