AQWF Writing Response 4: The Animal Inside

Authors Note: Throughout the whole 4th chapter, there were sentences scattered all over shedding light on the animal inside each soldier. The way they hold themselves in battle to their alertness to each detail surrounding them, the author portrays animal like characteristics in these men that not only hide in each one of them, but in every human being.

I don’t want to be the prey.

It hurts but I keep pumping my arms faster and faster; slicing through the air like blades. I don’t look behind me—I don’t dare to—just keep my head down, yet eyes up. My face is neither paler nor more flushed than usual, it’s not more stiff nor frightened—and yet it’s changed. My head is whirling with ideas, ways to escape yet all I pay attention to is the sound of the crunching leaves as they connect with my feet with each stride.

                I don’t want to be the prey.

The moment that his first touch grazes my arm and the roughness of his skin while he pulls me backwards from my stride suddenly, tares through my thoughts, my veins, my heart; a tense surrender, a waiting, a heightening alertness, a strange sharpening of the senses. The body with one bound is in full readiness. His thumbs press up against the back of my forearms as he gets ahold my wired body.

I will not be the prey

He presses himself down upon me long and powerfully when he buries his face and his limbs on my body, backing me up towards a tree. Tensing is not how my body reacts. It’s soft and relaxed while my eyes dart back and forth into the cold night.

I will not be the prey.

Whispering in my ear, he takes one of his rough fingers and traces it up my side. Goosebumps rise but not out of fear nor pleasure. Not a moment too soon. The dark goes mad. It heaves and rises inside of me, blacker than his eyes that rush over me with giant strides, over and then away.

I’m the predator.  

AQWF Writing Response 3: The Beauty in Opposites

               It seems that the good always conquers the evil; abolishes it because it’s weaker, dirtier, fouler. But yet, there is beauty in evil. There is beauty in darkness, in selfishness, in immorality. Without the other half, there is no hope of seeing the difference. If there were no selfish humans in the world, there would be no gratefulness towards the giving. If there were no damp, emotionless darkness, there would be no exquisiteness in the souring light. Appreciating the good must come with appreciating the evil.

                Remarque, author of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, writes in the beauty of opposites. Diving into the great depths of war, he makes sure to highlight the peacefulness of the trees or the soft glare of the sun to make the readers feel even more affected when they hear the harsh descriptions of the war.  At one point he writes, “The earth is streaming with forces which pour into me through the soles of my feet. The night crackles electrically, the front thunders like a concert of drums.” (17). What’s going on in these few sentences is hidden behind the laced up words of soft imagery. Not once does Remarque tell exactly what is going on in but through the differences in opposites, he can portray a very strong and insightful point.  

AQWF Writing Response 2- Expectations

Expectations are hard to live up to. Anyone knows this. But the sidekick to this concept is failure, disappointments, and heartbreaks. No one can see what is to come but everyone wonders about what they can accomplish in the future; what their calling/destiny is. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, the author uses poetic diction to show each and every soldiers disappointment in the expectations they had for this war they are participating in.                  

Beautiful, yet in a saddening way, Remarque portrays a childlike character in each man through motifs and careful choice of wording. The idea of making something horrible sound breathtakingly striking is what Remarque does well in this novel which helps parallel the idea of beautiful high hopes to crushing expectations. One soldier says, “We were still crammed full of vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also an ideal and almost romantic character”(13). Using the word “romantic” gives off an expectant setting to the scenario while really, there is a bittersweet idea hiding beneath. With the saddening yet beautiful writing of Remarque, the idea of expectations surround the text with an underlying childlike innocence.

AQWF Writing Response 1- Childhood vs. Adulthood Motifs

         When we are young, we live in a world where we feel like we are unstoppable; able to conquer anything that comes towards us because we don’t have reasons to think otherwise. There are no reasons to believe that we will get burned by the hot stove as we inch our 5 year old fingers towards the red glow, or we never expect the outcome of just having our first drink at that party. But when we know the punishments, the scalding of the skin or the probation from basketball, we realize we will never make that decision again. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, a group of young soldiers enter the war with a childlike, mind set of being unstoppable. But when they see what the war is really about they, “ distinguish the false from true, and suddenly learned to see” (6). Adulthood is not a time when you turn the famous 18 years, but is when you grow up; grow up from the view of innocence and protectiveness, because just like the war, life doesn’t a have a forgiving, childlike setting.