TOW #11 All Quiet on the Western Front By Erich Maria Remarque

In the second part of the book the author Erich Maria Remarque is now a seasoned veteran and has seen death and has now become jaded to it all.  The author is now changing from writing about what is happening in the physical world, but is now talking about what is going on in his mind. The author explains how he is slowly losing his mind to the tragedies of war. The author continues write directly to the public. He wants the idea of how warfare is terrible to be implanted into the minds of his readers. The author writes all the way until the end of the war when the armistice was declared in Europe. That is when the author looks down at his fellow soldiers and does not see the bubbly happiness one would expect at the end of the war. The author only sees empty shells crying to come back home. The author also uses an event that occurred to him in the war to show desperation. During the war there was a town that his unit had to capture. Inside that town some people had not left the place. So when his unit when they were shocked to find people still living there. They let the civilians leave, but some of them did not want to leave. Some of them had family members who were injured and could not move because of a stray bullet or projectile. The author explains how a little girl was shot in her leg and could not move and her family would not leave her. He write that the stood by her and even though he called for a medic to come and help them, he would not come help a civilian. They left the town because they were pushed back, and the fate of the little girl is unknown. I believe that the author did an excellent job at portraying the psychological problems that come to soldiers due to war.