Chapter Seven of "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The chapter starts out with Paul and what's left of his company moving back into safe German territory. This is a huge break after being in the Front Lines for so long. While in safe territory, they eat good and get a lot of sleep. During this time they get to meet three French women and Paul loses his v-card. After this event, Paul is granted a seventeen day leave. He takes the train home after a couple of days of rest behind ally lines. When he gets home he meets up with his mom, dad, and sister. When he talks to his mom he lies about the war and finds out she is sick again with cancer. He meets up with a commander back in his hometown and Paul gets angry at the commander for making Paul look like a tool. After this event, Paul goes to the beer garden and meets up with some of his people in his hometown. His father and his school teacher ask him a bunch of question which he lies about. Kantorak is recruited later in the chapter and Middelstaedt talks trash about him being a sloppy soldier. At the end of the chapter he says good-bye to his mother and returns to the camp on the moors.

Character List

Paul Bäumer: The main character of the novel. Kat is his best friend. Kropp is his classmate along with most of the others on the front line in his company.
Katczinsky: Paul's close friend. Also known as Kat. He is way older than Paul too.
Albert Kropp: Went to school with Paul. He's the one that always asked questions of why they were fighting. Kropp and Paul get injured together and Kropp has to get a leg amputated.
Müller: Another one of Paul's classmates. He dies by getting shot with a flare gun.
Tjaden: A friend in Paul's company. He's a big guy that hates Himmelstoss in the begining, but after they fight a bunch on the front line with him Tjaden gets to like Himmelstoss.
Kantorek: The school teacher that gets Paul and his friends to enlist in the military. He is a patriotic guy that calls his class the "Iron Youth".
Himmelstoss: The commander of Paul's company. Everybody doesn't like him for his strict ways. Then the company realizes that it probably saved their lives in the field.
Kemmerich: This person went to the same school as Paul. He dies from a amputated leg in chapter 2.
Behm: The very first of Paul's classmates to die in the war. He dies from getting concussed and blinded in No Man's Land, then gunned down in front of the company from machine gun fire.
Detering: This is the guy that was in Paul's company and got particularly angry during the war because of the horse farm that got destroyed by artillery.
French Guy Paul Kills: Paul killed this man by stabbing him in the throat. It is the most intimate way Paul ever killed anyone in the war. He even read the diary of the man while hiding in a artillery crater.

Joseph Behm

Hi, I'm Joseph Behm. I was the first to get screwed over by my school teacher Kantorak. When I joined the war, I was the most reluctant to sign up. Thanks to peer pressure, I decided to sign up. Around the first few days of being in the trenches it was just an ordinary day. Then an artillery shell threw me into No Man's Land. I don't remember this happening because I blacked out but when I woke up I couldn't tell what the heck was happening. I stood up and screamed for my friends. I think I heard them yelling back for me but then I got pounded with machine gun fire. If I was going to do this all over again I would have stayed in my peaceful little hometown and never listend to my teacher Kantorak. I also don't understand why I got such a minor part ion the book, I was clearly the coolest character.

Thesis Statement / Essay Topic #3 : The Function of Detailed Graphic Gore and Violence in “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque

Let me just start with the “All Quiet on the Western Front” was an amazing book written by Erich Maria Remarque. The descriptiveness surpassed no other. The book was extraordinary on describing every detail for the gruesomeness of WWI. That's what I would love to focus on. Every sense of destruction was covered. Every limb, every rotting appendage, every gruesome murder was accounted for. Erich was a captivating war novelist. I almost threw up at multiple times! Allow me to list them; when Behm, the person who was least likely to join the war, joined... He was the first to be killed, and it was gruesome! Behm was blinded in no mans land, stood up in confusion and got shot down! Then when the farm got bombarded by artillery was very gruesome. Chapter 4 page 62 where Paul described about the horses was messed up! I never want to go to war simply because of how sharply Erich detailed this process. No one wins at war and there simply is no beauty in it. However, Erich the author did capture the beauty of Paul Baumers hometown and that was nothing compared to how crappy it was in war. His respect of beauty died with the war. What was the point of respecting beauty if everything can be destroyed in war? My hypothesis of this question is you can't. If someone recovers from what Paul Baumer saw, they have some serious brain damage.

Bavaria

My Presentation

The Three States of Study

In this study, the three states of Germany that were given to study are; Schelswig-Holstein, Rheinland-Pfalz, Nordrhein-Westfalen. I will begin with explaining Schelswig-Holstein.


Schelswig-Holstein belongs to the northern border of Germany. The territory runs the most north compared to all the other states. The capital is Kiel located on the eastern border in the territory. Kiel is also the largest city within the state. According to wikipedia.com, the GDP of the state is 69 billion euros. 69 billion euros is about 96 billion US dollars. The states religion is composed of about 54% of the Evangelical church of Germany and 6% of Roman Catholics. The state itself has a port to two different seas; the Baltic and the North sea. The state is sparsely populated with a total population of 2.5 million people within 6,080 sq. miles of land. Obviously since there is 2 oceans around the state it relies on fishing. Another economic resource is farming. "For more than 100 years Kiel hosts the "Kieler Woche" during the last week of June. It is the greatest sailing event in the world and the biggest summer festival in Northern Europe and thousands of top class sailors from all over the world together with half a million spectators flock into the city."--- This is a fact directly from germany.co.za

http://www.germany.co.za/schleswig_holstein.html
http://answers.encyclopedia.com/question/general-economy-and-industry-state-schleswig-holstein-129433.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.schleswig-holstein.de/Portal/EN/Portal_node.html

The second German state I would like to explain is Rheinland-Pfalz. This is a western state that is 7,633 square miles with a population of about 4 million people. The GDP of the area is 102 billion euros which is the same as about 143 billion US dollars. Rheinland-Pfalz was established in 1943. The state is composed of 2 religous types; 46% catholic church and 35% evangelical church of Germany. The Eifel and Hunsruck are found in the northern part of Rhineland-Plafz. The state is the largest producer of wine in terms of grape cultivation and wine exports.  The capital is Mainz. The chemical indistry is the biggest in the world(also known as BASF).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland-Palatinate
http://www.romantic-germany.info/Tips-for-trips.4103.0.htm

The last state I will sum up is Nordrhein-Westfalen. This state is the most western state in Germany. Most populous economically developed in Germany. The state was ratified in 1947. The four of the top 10 populated cities in Germany are in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Those towns are Cologne, Dusseldorf(capital), Dortmund, and Essens. The lowest of these towns has a big population of 500,000 people.  The state is 13,160 square miles and has a total population of almost 18,000,000 people. It is one of the largest energy and mining producer in Europe. "Cologne Cathedral certainly is the city’s best-known attraction. It is the biggest of its type in Europe whose construction started in 1248 and, after several pauses some of which lasted  centuries, was at last finished between the year 1842 and 1880." -- here is another fact pulled directly from mygermancity.com.

http://www.mygermancity.com/north-rhine-westphalia
en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.nrw-tourism.com/interests/cities-culture/museums-exhibitions.html