Passage from All Quiet on the Western Front

Effective Word Choice and Strong Sentence Structure

Chapter 11 

            “Behind us lay rainy weeks- grey sky, grey fluid earth, grey dying. If we go out, the rain at once soaks through our overcoat and clothing; - and we remain wet all the time we are in the line. We never get dry. Those who will wear high boots tie sand bags round the tops so that the mud does not pour in so fast. The rifles are caked, the uniforms caked, everything is fluid and dissolved, the earth one dripping, soaked, oily mass in which lie yellow pools with red spiral streams of blood and into which the dead, wounded, and survivors slowly sink down.

            The storm lashes us, out of the confusion of grey and yellow the hail of splinters whips forth the child-like cries of the wounded, and in the night shattered life groans painfully into silence.

            Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live” (Remarque 286-287).

            I love the amount of description that the author uses to get the readers to envision the soldiers’ situation. This passage really allows me to create a mental picture of the conditions. The men are suffering terribly in these conditions. Immediately, I am able to picture the earth on a rainy day, sad and grey, but that’s how the soldiers are living every day. I don’t think I would be able to bear it because I hate overcast days. They make me want to lie around all day and do absolutely nothing. The soldiers must live day to day still soaked from rain with no way to get dry. The world that the soldiers must face appears sad and grey.

The word “caked” grabbed my attention. I can picture the weapons and the clothing covered with dried mud, mud formed from a mixture of dirt and rain. The use of this word actually reminded me of a description in To Kill a Mockingbird when the women’s facial powder mixed with their sweat from the humidity outside and turned out looking like a cakey mixture. I also love the use of the word “lashes.” The soldiers seem to be attacked by the storm rather than it just passing through. It affects their lives on the front in a big way.

This passage also uses good sentence structure. The author alternates between short and long sentences, and there are pauses throughout the long sentences. There are also many comparisons drawn and grammar tools used that aid in the mental image that the reader is able to establish in his mind. My favorite comparison would have to be “Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain” (Remarque 287). The men are not simply living on the earth, they are becoming one with the earth. The mood and feeling of the earth correlates with those of the soldiers. Both are sad, and angry, and depressed.