Summer Reading English 3

As I read these two novels, The Things They Carried, by Tim O` Brien, and All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, I noticed that there were many similarities and differences between the two। For instance, as far as the protagonist and how they were effected by their environment, the setting, and how they coped with the lost of their comrades।

In The Things They Carried, is about the protagonist, and author, Tim O` Brien and his experience fighting in either WWI or WWII। He also gives you a vivid description of each and everyone of his comrades and what was sort of their way of dealing keeping their sanity during the war. His way of dealing is to never forget and after the war is over he begins to write stories and that is what keeps him sane.


Then we have the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer who like Tim O` Brien, is fighting in WWI. Throughout the story, Paul constantly refers to moments in his life before he became a soldier which show that WWI has changed him a way, to the point where he doesn`t even feel a sense of remorse for the death of a fellow comrade. The way he kept his sanity was by reminding himself not to let his feelings get into the way because truthfully, he wasn`t quite comfortable with the thought of killing another person, let alone pulling the trigger himself. Paul is finally murdered at the end of the story, on a peaceful day. When he died, the army said “ All quiet on the western front....” showing that Paul was dead.

Both stories are similar in the respects that, they are set in the same time period, (during the time of WWI) and they both are soldiers in the war। The protagonists kill men throughout the war despite their own beliefs। The last similarity I believe they share is that they have a way of staying sane, which is very hard to do when you are in an environment where people are being
murdered everyday, diseases are being spread very easily, the technology is not like ours today,
meaning that there are is not many drugs available, so more soldiers are having to get more body parts amputated।

Now the differences were the fact that Tim O` Brien story was true and it was about an experience he had, whereas Paul Bäumer, was a fictional character that whose experience was very similar to Tim`s. These characters tried very hard to keep their sanity, but the ways in which they did this were very different. Tim chose to not forget and write stories about them, whereas Paul chose not to focus on his feelings so that they wouldn`t consume him. Paul`s way of coping doesn`t seem effective to me because how can u choose not to think about something you see everyday? Also, Tim kind of wanted to fight in the war, Paul was persuaded by a teacher of his. Last but not least, Tim is still alive and Paul was finally murdered after being the only and remaining soldier on his unit.

These novels took me a while to warm up to them because I couldn` t follow the story. I`m pretty glad that I decided to read them because they turned out to be a tragedy and at times, a comedy.

So as you can see, these novels really did end up having a lot in common. The setting, the conflicts within the stories (which were sometimes internal and sometimes external), how the environment made and shaped each characters personality, how the coped with the lost of their fellow comrades, and last but not least, how they maintained their composure were all used to compare and contrast both characters.