Jack Bretl

Chapter Six Literary Analysis 

Sunday April 14

Fitzsimmons English

All Quiet On The Western Front Chapter 6 Literary Reflection Paragraph

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on. -Ulysses S. Grant

Horror is the child of fear. While reading chapter six of All Quiet On The Western Front, I became petrified with the horror that is the battle on the Western Front. Reading chapter six made me feel so petrified and scared I thought I was going to throw up. I don’t think I ever realized the horror that is war. I could have never imagined how gory the battle was without reading this chapter. This chapter to me was just another chapter until about 20 words in. You could tell the mood was set and the smell of fear was in the air. A battle was upon the soldiers and they knew it. I as the reader experienced nothing but fear. For some reason I felt fear for the soldiers. The author hooked my emotions in a way that made me feel like it could be me out there in one day and I should experience it. What stroke me as the most horrible was that men would be firing their gun and their fellow soldier whom they may have know for years just died. There is no time for emotion. If your fellow soldier gets hit you scream for a medic but you can’t break down you must keep firing like your life is depending on it because it is. Reading this chapter gave me some perspective on what War is like from a soldiers review. The quote that moved me the most was this.

 “It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bombproof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck”. 

That line exemplified exactly how I felt while reading this chapter. Reading this quote made me feel a kinship with Paul who said it. I felt like I was right there with him preparing myself for what would be the worst battle of my life. Before I read this chapter I had no fear, but surely did that change. This chapter gave me a sense of knowledge for the future. I now feel much  more comfortable reading the rest of the book.

Jack Bretl