All quiet on the western front chapter 3 themes
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Chapter six reflection

Morality Of War

By: Connor Soukup

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Those with hearts live and without die

We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill.” -All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

 

     The absence of morality is the answer to survival. While reading Chapter Six of All Quiet On The Western Front, I learned how important it is to immoral and although the thought of being merciful sounds pleasant the true outcome is horrific. The brutality of war can only be seen though the eyes of the soldiers fighting in it. We are unable to know the true feelings that went through the heads of the few survivors, who yet being alive had to find their worst selfs to survive.

    I have read books and seen many movies and films about how terrible war is and what it may feel like to be in their suit. But chapter 6 has proved it like I’ve never seen before. In Chapter Six;

the earth is the background of this restless, gloomy world of automatons, our gasping is the scratching of a quill, our lips are dry, our heads are debauched with stupor—thus we stagger forward, and into our pierced and shattered souls bores the torturing image of the brown earth with the greasy sun and the convulsed and dead soldiers, who lie there—it can’t be helped—who cry and clutch at our legs as we spring away over them.”

The soldiers braved the horror survive and the new soldiers and recruits didn’t make it. This is because of how weak and unstable their minds are that they don’t know how to keep their mind closed and only think of survival. A young recruit in a dugout being bombed “began mashing is head against the wall”  It made me think of how manipulating war is and how it can change you to a different person.

     I learned from this chapter that the worst sights in the world happen during war. During the part where protagonists were stepping over bodies and seeing all the young soldiers from both sides getting unable to comprehend what is happening and than getting their heads blown off. While reading I was connected the the words as if I was really there, the sights and sounds that the characters feel I felt also. The writing yet explaining terrible things, had an amazing way of describing it. And this chapter has delplayed it the best. 

     Human morality is our greatest weakness. This fact may seem awful, but the truth was the only thing keeping these soldiers alive rather than dead. Their experiences throughout chapter six was evidence that the strong survives and the weak parish.

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