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Austin Wang
Mrs. Keys
English 10 P.5
10 February 2015

Rejecting the Burden

Bursting out of the gate with explosive enthusiasm and cheerful bloodlust, World War
One started with authorities fueling an ever-growing enlistment lines with propaganda of
nationalism and promises of a glorious war that would end before Christmas. However, as the
war dragged on and winter storms rolled in over France, the soldiers soon found out they would
not be having Paris for lunch and Saint Petersburg for dinner (Kaiser Wilhelm II). While
Majors lounged in the comforts of the base and continued to assure their soldiers of eminent
victory, soldiers found themselves in a grueling state of perpetual terror, disease, pain, and
hunger within the trenches. Propaganda struggled to keep up with the growing body counts and
the government could not suppress storms of discontentment as soldiers exposed to the true
horrors of war gradually spoke out against the authoritative figures who had started and led the
war. Blame began to shift towards the men in power who preached war without knowing
anything about the true nature of battle. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria
Remarque and the poem Base Details by Siegfried Loraine Sassoon apply vastly different
diction from different points of viewthe grim view of a soldier versus the casual view of a
soldier pretending to be a commander; the presence and absence of vivid imagery, and similar
dehumanizing metaphor to convey the theme that people in positions of power continuously
disconnect themselves from war and are childishly adamant in remaining ignorant and guiltless
of the death and destruction they create.

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All Quiet on the Western Fronts solemn or morbid tone is antithetical to the sarcastic and
nonchalant tone of Base Details, but their contrast highlights the disconnection between those
at battle and their commanders. All Quiet on the Western Front is written from the point of Paul
Baumer, a soldier fighting for Germany in World War One, as he writes about his experiences in
the war. As a soldier witnessing the horrible realities of bombings, gas attacks, and trench
warfare, Paul develops a funereal tone as he watches and records the deaths of his comrades. He
uses cold and calculative semantics to describe the day after a battle where his section suffered
immense losses, noting, The morning is grey, it was still summer when we came up, and we
were one hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze, it is autumn, the leaves rustle, the voices
flutter out wearily: Onetwothreefourand cease at thirty-two (Remarque 136). This
simplistic description emphasizes the sheer hopelessness of the soldiers situation and the cease
at thirty-two hammers in the horrific reality of loss with a tangible and undeniable figure. The
grey morning symbolizes the monotony of death and depression that the soldiers have been
accustomed to. Paul mentions the transition from summer to autumn to symbolize the enthusiasm
of the soldiers at the start of the war changing into the soldiers dying off like withering fall
leaves. Contrastingly, the narrator of Base Details imagines a Major reacting towards losses in
battle with little remorse or care as he comments Poor young chap,/ Id say I used to know
his father well; yes weve lost heavily in this last scrap. (Sassoon l 6-7). Instead of providing a
number to highlight the body count in the last battle, the imaginary Major merely says weve
lost heavily, implying that he may not even know how many people are dying at war, much less
any account of the suffering the soldiers are facing. The use of the word scrap suggests people
in positions of power see battles in war as childish squabbles and devaluates the thousands of
lives lost in war. The childish connotation of the word scrap and the phrase poor young chap

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reveals that the Major thinks of himself as a paternalistic figure with magnified arrogance and
minimized love and care. The iambic pentameter format, traditionally reserved for the speeches
of noble characters, furthers the idea that the Majors arrogantly see themselves as far above the
soldiers. The Major may be too arrogant to care about the lowly, childish soldiers problems
and may simply not care enough to learn about the war effort. Ironically, the phrase puffy
petulant face (Sassoon l 4) suggests that the Majors are the true children as petulant literally
means childish. The title of Base Details itself holds a double meaning as base refers to both
the place in which leaders in war meet and an adjective meaning evil. This double meaning
emphasizes the contempt that the soldiers feel and extends the disdain the reader feels towards
the commanders at base. When comparing the grave tone of All Quiet on the Western Front side
by side with the casual and unremorseful tone of Base Details the soldiers appear to be mature
and scarred while the Majors seem arrogant, childish, and ignorant of war.
Furthering the leaders ignorance about war, the poem Base Details blatantly lacks
description regarding the war and the Majors luxurious life draws sharp contrast to the
gruesome details of battle in All Quiet on the Western Front and underscores the idea that
soldiers on the front are far more knowledgeable than the unaware Majors back at base. The
narrator of Base Details hypothesizes that commanders would be Guzzling and gulping in the
best hotel. The guzzling and gulping may refer to the Majors constantly getting drunk in order
to become even more ignorant to the war they lead. Even if they had any nightmarish knowledge
about war, they would drown their awareness in beer and ale. Other than drinking, the narrator
writes little detail of the Majors life back at base, suggesting soldiers at the front are so
distanced from their leaders that they cannot even imagine the luxury the leaders live in. The lack
of detail also gives the reader the sense that the Majors could have anything that the reader

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him/herself may lack, furthering feelings of jealousy and anger towards the Majors and pushing
forward Sassoons criticisms of men in power. Contrarily, Remarque leaves very little to the
readers imagination as he paints a bloody picture of war with painstaking detail. Through Pauls
eyes, Remarque gives a gruesome account of a battle with tremendous losses: We see men
living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger
on their splintered stumps into the next shell-hole; a lance-corporal crawls a mile and a half on
his hands dragging his smashed knee after his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men
without mouths, jaws, faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for
two hours in order not to bleed to death. The sun goes down, night coms, the shells whine, life is
at an end (134). Paul vivid word choice as he describes injuries as splintered stumps
bulge[ing] intestines accents how unwillingly engrossed the soldiers are in the terrifying
everyday sights of war. People naturally imagine what they want, but block out ideas and images
that are unappealing, so Remarque uses vivid imagery to force the unescapable horror of war into
his readers unwilling minds. The contrast between the suffering of the soldier and the luxury of
the major highlights the sheer sense of detachment between those leading the war and those
actually fighting.
Lastly, both the poem and the novel mention authoritative figures using dehumanizing
metaphor that compare soldiers to sturdy, inanimate substances to obstinately desensitize
themselves from the suffering they cause. The imaginary Major in Base Details refers to the
dead soldiers as youth stone-dead (Sassoon l 9). The metaphor youth stone dead holds the
connotation of unfeeling and subtly implies the young soldiers are inanimate and not-suffering as
they die. Instead of thinking about the ways in which soldiers are killed, the Major thinks of war
as speeding glum heroes up the line to death. (Sassoon l 3). The metaphor line to death is

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parallel to the assembly lines of the factories of the recent industrial age, but, instead of
producing goods, the line to death produces corpses. The connotation of the factory and the
idea of corpses being products dehumanizes the soldiers who are constantly dying at alarming
rates and allows the Majors to become desensitized to the growing body count they continuously
add to. The major is also depicted to be objectifying the lives of soldiers as products to be
consumed as he holds control over the line to death. Majors hold these ideas in order to
relieve themselves of the guilt that the suffering of the soldiers would bring them and to
subconsciously desensitize themselves from the hellish torture they sentence young men to.
However, Pauls account of men without mouths, jaws, faces contrast the false ideals of
painless death that the Majors hold and reveals that, ironically, the Majors are too childish to
accept the truth. Paul universalizes the attitude and actions of the Major to all men in power as he
says Yes, that's the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth. Youth! We
are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? Youth? That is long ago. We are old folk
(Remarque 18). Similar to stone the word iron holds the connotation of cold, hard, and
unfeeling which emphasizes the idea that authoritative figures disconnect themselves from the
feelings and hardships of the soldiers. Kantorek characterizes the soldiers as Iron youth who
are too strong to be affected by the war. However, the opposite is true as Paul says We are old
folk implying that the war has deeply affected the young soldiers and robbed them of their
youth. The novel and poem portray men in power using cold and inanimate metaphors and
characterization to intentionally distance themselves from the humanity of the soldiers and
continuously deny, with childish stubbornness, the suffering that they, the men in power, cause.
World War One ended with few winners and many losses for the general populous to
bear. It left 38 million unnecessary casualties and a scarred, lost-generation in its wake. After this

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international tragedy, philosophers, writers, and soldiers took up their pens to find and unveil the
truth and cause of war. Through the contrasting tones, the presence and absence of imagery, and
the dehumanizing metaphors in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front and the poem Base
details both Remarque and Sassoon reveal that authoritative figures are disconnected from war.
The authoritys desensitization from others humanity and this denial of guilt keeps the leaders of
the war comfortable and unaffected by the immense suffering they cause. Exposing men in
power to the reality of war forces the burden of millions of corpses on their shoulders and is a
key deterrent to future wars.