All Quiet on the Western Front - Winston-Salem/Forsyth ...



All Quiet on the Western Front – Introductory Information

• The novel opens in 1916 near the German front lines somewhere in eastern France and covers events of two years – from late 1916 until October 1918 (one month before the Armistice – end of the war)

• Present tense is used to make the story more vivid.

• Bildungsroman – novel of maturation. How do the characters change/grow “older”?

WWI

• Lasted from 1914-1918

• Nationalism was a chief cause

• catalyst – Assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand by a Serb in Sarajevo

• Austria/Hungary declared war on Serbia

• Germany declared war on Russia and France (Serbian allies)

• Allied Forces: British, French, Americans

• Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey

• Peace declared at 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when Germany surrendered.

• Treaty of Versailles

• Ten million soldiers died and estimated ten million civilians from injuries and privations

• Poison gas used for the first time (in trenches)

• Germany fell into economic ruin and gave way to the National Socialist Party (NAZI)

• Worldwide depression began after the 1929 stock market crash.

• Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and six years later German expansion and aggression plunged the world into WWII.

• The NAZI party denounced Remarque’s seemingly anti-war attitude because they claimed that they were the direct heir of classical antiquity and war was a mythic undertaking in the tradition of the Iliad.

The “Lost Generation”

• The novel is the story of a generation of men destroyed by WWI.

• The men who fought were considered to be a “lost generation” because the war brought out the death of idealism and innocence.

• People now questioned authority, traditional values, and social conventions; military discipline was mocked and the relevance of school was questioned.

• After the war, a devil may care attitude developed – Jazz Age.

• Remarque, who was a soldier, suffered from bouts of depression after the war that he couldn’t understand. He began writing as a way to deal with this.

Major Character List (make notes to help you remember who they are)

• Paul Bäumer

• Lt. Bertinck

• Detering

• Gérard Duval

• Kantorek

• Kat (Stanislaus Katczinsky)

• Franz Kemmerich

• Albert Kropp

• Müller

• Paul’s mother

• Tiedjen

• Tjaden

• Haie Westhus

Thematic Topics

• individual v. machine (questioning authority, tradition, social conventions)

• friendship/comradeship

• alienation and loneliness

Important Literary Techniques

• diction

• syntax

• point of view

• structure

• setting

• imagery

• symbolism

• irony

• figurative language

• tone

• mood

All Quiet on the Western Front – Reading Questions

You need to annotate every chapter (using post-its unless you purchase your own copy), as well as answer the reading questions for that chapter.

Chapter 1

1. How does the author “set the stage” at the beginning of the novel? What details in the opening chapter helped to make the setting especially vivid? WHY does the author do this at the beginning?

2. When Paul describes his friends, he says that Albert Kropp was “the clearest thinker among us and therefore only a lance-corporal.” What does this statement imply about Paul’s opinion of the army chain of command?

3. How is Katczinsky characterized in this opening chapter? What do his words and actions show about his personality and his relationship to the other men?

4. When Paul talks about the solders’ intestines and “latrine-rumors,” what theme does the author seem to be developing?

5. What contrasts does Paul stress between the young men of his own generation and their elders, who represented “authority”?

6. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that is actually true. Explain the paradoxical statement that Paul makes about Kemmerick: “He is it still and yet it is not he any longer.”

7. Sometimes small details contribute a great deal to characterization of a person. What does Paul’s deliberate treading on Müller’s foot at the hospital reveal about Paul’s character? What does his hasty intervention with the offer of a cigarette to the orderly show about him?

Chapter 2

1. Paul says that he and the other young men of his generation have become a “waste land.” What has led him to this bleak conclusion?

2. In chapter one of the novel, Remarque began to develop one of the book’s major themes by showing Paul’s attitude toward the schoolmaster Kantorek and other members of the older generation who represented authority. How do Paul’s comments about Himmelstoss and military discipline continue to develop this theme in chapter two?

3. Remarque uses one of his favorite structural techniques in chapter two: the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting scenes or episodes. How does the mood of the first half of the chapter, which focuses on Himmelstoss, contrast with the mood of the second half, which focuses on the death of Kemmerich?

4. How does Paul’s behavior at the hospital with Kemmerich contribute to Paul’s characterization? How does this contrast with his description of soldiers as inhumane?

5. When Paul leaves the hospital after Kemmerich’s death, he experiences a wave of relief. What does Remarque seem to be implying about human feelings in his description of Paul at the very end of chapter two?

Chapter 3

1. When they argue about the war, Kat and Kropp bet a bottle of beer on the outcome of an air-flight that is going on above them. What does this casual wager imply about the solders’ state of mind?

2. Kat says that he thinks that “man is essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of bread with a little decorum.” How does he support this opinion? How do you react to Kat’s outlook?

3. What do you think Haie means when he says, “Revenge is black-pudding”? What figure of speech is he using?

4. This chapter explores the feelings and attitudes of the common soldier about World War I. Can you think of any parallels to these feelings from information you have about other wars – for examples, the Civil War, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf conflict, the Iraqi War?

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