Point of View

1. Period 3 Ms. Cvejic Due 3-2-11 All Quiet on the Western Front Point of View Brooke Adams Jase Emery Anna Farello Analise Fernandez Ethan Liang Seth McKenna Riley Middough

2. The point of view (POV) is the method chosen to narrate a story. • The POV in All Quiet on the Western Front is first person. • First person provides insight to the events in the novel and makes the reader feel as if they are the main character. • The POV changes to third person objective in the last paragraph of the novel to describe the main character’s death. What Does This Mean?

3. Who Said What? Chapter 2: Chapter 1: “He laughs. ‘We are the Iron Youth.’ We all three smiled bitterly, Kropp rails: He is glad that he can speak. Yes, that’s the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantorek’s! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk” (18). “The war swept us away. For others, the older men, it is but an interruption. They are able to think beyond it. We, however, have been gripped by it and do not know what the end may be. We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land. All the same, we are not often sad” (20).

4. Who Said What? Cont. “[Explosions] are smaller shells;—and amongst them, booming through the night like an organ, go the great coal-boxes and the heavies. They have a hoarse, distant bellow like a rutting stag, and make their way high above the howl and whistle of the smaller shells. It reminds me of flocks of wild geese when I hear them. Last autumn the wild geese flew day after day across the path of the shells”(59). “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, We are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost” (123). Chapter 4: Chapter 6:

5. Who Said What? Cont. Chapter 7: Chapter 7: “We have seen nothing like it for years, nothing like it for happiness, beauty and joy. That is peacetime, that is as it should be; we feel excited” (141). “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:—‘you are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things” (160).

6. Who Said What? Cont. Chapter 8 Chapter 8: “I often become so lost in the play of soft light and transparent shadow, that I almost fail to hear the commands. It is when one is alone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her. And here I have not much companionship, and do not even desire it”(189). “It is odd seeing these men—our enemies—at such close quarters. Their faces make you stop and think, good peasant faces, broad foreheads, broad noses, broad lips, broad hands, shaggy hair. They really ought to be ploughing or harvesting or apple-picking. They look even more good-natured than our own farmers from over in Frisia” (135).

7. Say Mean Matter “I breathe deeply and say over to myself:—‘you are at home, you are at home.’ But a sense of strangeness will not leave me, I cannot feel at home amongst these things” (160). Paul’s arrival back home is emotionally tough for him, since the front seemed like home for so long. Paul tries to enjoy the little time he has with his family, but war continues to pull him back. Paul’s struggle to adjust shows the theme of the horrors of war and how it affects soldiers. The first person POV shows how harsh and chaotic war is, and that pre-war life can become a challenge after fighting for so long. When Paul leaves the front on leave, he returns home to a series of unfamiliar events. Mentally, Paul is still at war. Say-Mean-Matter #1

8. Say-Mean-Matter #2 Matter The first-person POV characterizes Paul as a poetic, sensitive individual. He describes the prisoners as “good-natured” which shows Paul’s ability to find the best attributes in people. He uses imagery to instill in the readers’ minds what the prisoners looked like. The tone is soft and serene in the midst of tough training. Say “It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They have faces that make one think—honest peasant faces, broad foreheads, broad noses, broad mouths, broad hands, thick hair. They ought to be put to threshing, reaping, and apple-picking. They look just as kindly as our own peasants in Friesland” (190). Mean After his leave is over, Paul goes to camp to get back in war-mode, and discovers Russian prisoners living in the same area.

9. Say-Mean Matter #3 MEAN SAY MATTER “He laughs. ‘We are the Iron Youth.’ We all three smiled bitterly, Kropp rails: He is glad that he can speak. Yes, that’s the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantorek’s! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk” (18). When Albert Kropp opens a letter from his old Schoolmaster Kantorek, he and his comrades are surprised at the letter’s laughable insignificance. Paul and his friends mocking the letter shows their loss of innocence since the war began. The letter is also ironic because there is no longer anything youthful or ‘iron’ about them. The boys display their nationalism, and show the disconnection between the younger and older soldiers. The theme of hypocrisy of authority comes up, too.

10. Paul was able to preserve his identity through his comrades. • Fighting in the war definitely changed his outlook on life, but his • friends kept him sane. • Paul’s connection to nature also helped him keep his identity. He was • artistic and sensitive, so writing poetry and admiring nature was his • safe-haven during the war. • Remarque finds that identity can be maintained by focusing on the • positive. Paul does this when he plays cards with his friends, enjoys the • beauty of nature, and hopes to return home. Connection to Essential Question