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.