Chapter eight literary anylsis

“Sometimes by loosing the battle you find a new way to win the war.”

-Donald Trump

     War is waged by humans and dehumanized by humans. In the book All Quiet On the Western Front Chapter eight the Russian prisoners are treated horribly and unfairly. The Russians are war prisoners and the German soldiers can watch them through a fence. They are extremely malnourished because they don’t get fed enough and are not treated well. Everyday Paul sees more dying and getting buried because of this. In the first couple of days when Paul arrived at his new training he saw how little food they had and how unfairly treated they were. Over the next couple of days he started talking with some of the of Russians and even shared some of his food and cigars. 

“They have dysentery; furtively many of them display the blood-stained tails of their shirts. Their backs, their necks are bent, their knees sag, their heads droop as they stretch out their hands and beg in the few words of German that they know—beg with those soft, deep, musical voices, that are like warm stoves and cosy rooms at home.”

All Quiet On the Western Front Chapter VIII

These Russians are treated so badly that they literally die. All they would really need is to have a bit more food so that they could survive. But alas the leaders obviously don’t care enough and do not even give them enough food to survive. Since the Russians are going to be prisoners for a while maybe they should at least make their life a bit less miserable. They have to do labor and don’t get enough food to even live so it’s really just cruel.

The power of friendship

“Friends are the people who make you smile brighter, laugh louder and love better.”

-Anonymous 

     Friendship is the most powerful thing in the world. My friends are always there for me when I need them to back me up. I have found through the years that my friends are always in for a good time and that’s why we decided to do Fenn Flames. Fenn Flames is a soccer team that a few kids from eighth or ninth grade make and play at Teamwork’s. This year we weren’t exactly the best team, we didn’t have many players with real experience on the pitch. We were playing a double header one night it was one of our last games of the regular season. Our first game was against the CC Bombers. When we heard we were playing a bunch of seventh graders from Carlisle we laughed. There is one thing you need to know about our team is that we were probably the most hated team in the league and by far the leading team in penalty minutes and cards. Back to the game, the first half wasn’t really that bad we had only let in two goals. Then the second half is where it got bad. There were a lot of fouls back and forth and there was one sequence where we got three cards within five minutes. When there was about five minutes left in the game there was a big blob right in front of the other teams net, everyone was trying to pick the ball out of the blob then I pulled it out and right as I was about to turn and shoot the biggest player on their team—our nickname for him was man child—kicked completely missed the ball and kicked right through my left ankle. Right when I got kicked I knew something was wrong, I had been playing soccer for a long time and had been kicked in the ankle hard many times but never had I not been able to walk to the bench or even put any pressure on my foot. Thought this whole process of recovering from a really badly sprained ankle and a bruised bone I’ve had friends helping me with whatever I need help with at school and always asking me when I’d be able to run around and do the things I most enjoy, and of course there was always someone willing to go in the elevator with me when I was on crutches. Friendship has the power to change someone’s life.

Chapter Seven Socratic Idea

I think that we should talk about one thing during Paul’s transition back into society. After Paul got back from his leave h had a really hard time transitioning back into his daily life in the war. It was really hard for him to do the everyday things he had to do. These are just a few of the reasons I think we should talk about Paul’s transition back into society.

Chapter six literary reflection

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

-Donald Trump

     True horror can never be forgotten. While reading All Quiet on the Western Front, I experienced complete horror while reading. Reading this chapter made me feel I like I was there and experiencing all the horror they were experiencing. I felt like when a shell was shot into their trenches I was thinking about everything that would be going trough their heads at the time. I could feel the complete horror of after the shell lands and they see not everyone made it. The chapter opens with Paul and his friends in trenches preparing for the shelling to begin. Fast forward a bit and the shelling has begun, slowly the new recruits began to loose their minds, one recruit tried to escape but then boom. “I start after one who escapes and wonder whether to shoot him in the leg—then it shrieks again, I fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of uniform. I scramble back.” At last the bombardment stops, but every soldier knows that doesn’t mean that the fight is over. In the distance they see hundreds of French soldiers running towards their trenches. Then the violence and horror starts back up. This chapter him me like a freight train. Compared to the rest of the chapters this one had so much more action, adrenaline and violence. But even in all of the action it was still easy to find the main theme from this chapter, horror. This chapter really showed me the true horror of war and the thoughts and expressions of an unexperienced and experienced soldier. This chapter really gave me a new perception on war and the horror of it. 

Chapter four paragraph 

“To live is to suffer, to sirvive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

    Writing this piece was really easy considering me and Andrew work pretty well together. We both did an even amount of work and if we were to right one of these again later in the year I would probably work with Andrew again. Even when we got a little bit unfocused during class we pulled it back together and started writing again. Overall I think this process went really well. Man's greatest instinct is survival. In chapter four of All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, all the soldiers face many challenges, but the most difficult of them all is survival. Surviving the trenches in near impossible but for Paul, Kantorek, Kat, Tjaden and Müller they manage to find their way through with the help of each other, survival and a little bit of luck. Everyone is near the front line placing barbed wire. They were just about finished when Kat’ s instinct to survive kicked in.  He got a bad feeling that was telling him that there was going to be a bombardment because the English usually attack at 10pm but they had attacked at 9pm. Kat shared this with everyone right before the bombardments and they all ran back towards the barracks.

“At the sound of the  first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, then conscious. One cannot explain it...it is this other, this second sight in us, that has...saved us, without our knowing how.”

Kat’s sixth sense and his will for survival help him and the rest of the soldiers survive in all types of situations. It is nearly impossible to survive the trenches and because everyone’s common goal is survival. Survival guides the lifestyle in day to day life in the trenches, no matter who you are or who you were the only thing that matters to you is survival. Everyone in the trenches has the same question, will I survive? Survival is what drives everyone to get through any type of situation. The feeling of wanting to survive is man's greatest instinct and without it we wouldn’t be here today.

Metacognition

Writing this piece was really easy considering me and Andrew work pretty well together. We both did an even amount of work and if we were to right one of these again later in the year I would probably work with Andrew again. Even when we got a little bit unfocused during class we pulled it back together and started writing again. Overall I think this process went really well.

Finley Stevens

Fitz English

April 1, 2019

Chapter three Socratic seminar

“Our knowledge of life is limited to death”
-All Quiet on the Western Front

What I want to talk about during the Socratic seminar about chapter three is abusing power. I want to talk about this because the group of friends that this book is mainly about have told so many stories of when they were doing training drills, following orders or just doing something as simple as cleaning there bunk and Himmelstoss or another commander would punish them even is they just slightly messed one thing up or did something the wrong way they would punish them sometimes severely. So the question I want to discuss and figure out during the socratic seminar is whether or not Himmelstoss and the other commanders are abusing their power. The other thing that I want to talk about is why to everyone who decided to join the army or who’s parents made them join why did was the decision so automatic for the kid or the parent? Before they left did the consider the fact that this could be the most dangerous thing they’ll ever do in their life? They would be leaving their whole life behind and basically be starting a brand new life totally different from their life back at a home? If another war was to happen nowadays knowing everything that can happen to you during war do you think everyone’s decision to join would be as automatic as it was before?