Personal Narrative: All Quiet On The Western Front

WWI was a horribly excruciating war as evidenced by the new weaponry and technology that came about during this time. Throughout the war there were constantly new developments in machinery to try and beat out the enemy. Since all of the technology was new, and most of the powerful countries at the time were engaged in the war, there was little to prevent certain weapons from being used like there is today. An example of this is poison gas, the beginning of chemical warfare. The gas was very easy to dispense over large areas, and could incapacitate a large area of soldiers, by blinding them, making them unable to breathe, or through other effects. Tanks were also developed to crush through sturdy trenches with barbed wire. A more direct …show more content…
Being so removed from the fight due to the use of such advanced weapons made it easier to kill so many more people. In my opinion, one of the most disheartening parts of the war was that many of the soldiers were so young, teenagers even. To be so young and see so many people to die around you and possibly at your hands is terrifying and unsettling. The excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque,”I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another” shows how many people’s lives were changed for the worse through a war that was unnecessarily gruesome. These soldiers, young and old, turned into “mechanical soldiers” because they were part of something that made them inhuman and allowed them to have the technological means to act robotically in the way they killed people. For those that returned home, they would have a different perspective on life, whether they suffered from an explicit mental illness such as PTSD or not, how could someone not be impacted by such events? How would the veterans rely on the families that

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Personal Narrative: All Quiet On The Western Front