all quiet on the western front

I have recently started reading All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Mariaremarque. In my history classes I have learned about World War I on multiple occasions in the last several years. I always hear that history is written by its victors and this is exactly what makes this story interesting. It is written in the perspective of a soldier on the losing side of the war. Typically you only hear about the war through the eyes of the allied forces. However, or at least in my case, I have never heard what the war was like for the German forces in the Great War. Even though I am not very far into this novel I think the differences on the German side of the war is very different. The main character is not much older than me and I think it’s amazing how different his life is from my own. But I like how I can compare my own life to the life of a soldier. Paul Baumer enlists into the German army with his classmates and with youthful enthusiasm. However, the book also graphically displays all the tragedies which took place in the trenches. Paul faces lots of hardships as he watches his friends die in front of him or he faces hunger and discomfort in the trenches. Lots of poor health conditions because many of the medical workers in the war were ill-equipped or had so many injured patients to deal with that many of the soldiers were neglected and did not receive all of the help they may have desperately needed. So far, this book is filled with intense situations because the war was very intense in general. Seeing these events take place through a soldier’s eyes is much more interesting because I have friends and I can compare my life to his and even think about what my life would be like if I were to enlist in the military with my friends. Although things were very different in the 1910’s, some of the circumstances would be the same and I like how this book makes me compare the modern military with the military during the Great War because so much has changed since World War I such as weapons, vehicles, and medical practices. War itself is fought very differently than it was nearly 100 years ago. I hope as I continue to read this novel I will learn more about the war and what it was like to be a soldier during this time period.

The Light in The Forest - Part III

The ending of the story was much more dramatic than I was expecting and it was appropriate even though it was a little bit of a letdown personally.  After living with the white people for a few months and you could clearly see how the white culture had slowly and forcefully changed True Son and pushed him out of many of his Indian radical beliefs. I thought that True Son would end up living with his white family permanently and he would eventually just get over his cultural struggles. Even though True Son frequently thought about abandoning his white family and running back to his Indian home, I did not think that he would actually leave, especially after he bonds with his white little brother. However, I did not predict that he would run away from the white civilization with his cousin. When he eventually reached his old Indian home, his adopted father Cuyloga, welcomed him back with open arms. After returning to his tribe and telling the others about his uncle and his men killing and scalping their young Indian friend, the tribe decides to attack the whites.  So the men from the tribe go to the white civilization and bring back the scalps of whites the next day and True Son is appalled to see that his people had scalped a child. After True Son gets over it, his people ask him to hide in the river and wait for a boat of white people to come to his rescue then when the white people try to save him the Indians will rush out and ambush the boat and kill everyone on it. When a ship finally comes down the river, True Son cries for help and tries to provoke the ship towards him. However, out of the water he glimpses a little boy who reminds him of his little white brother whom was innocent and he liked compared to the rest of his family. Then he hears a kind woman aboard the ship urging the men onboard to help him and he knows that they are also innocent. He could not bring himself to kill the people on the ship even if some of them were mad, he warns the whites that it’s an ambush and the whites survive. The end of the story was very dramatic because True Son’s tribe wants to kill him after his mistake. His father Cuyloga steps in and reminds the rest of the tribe that True Son did not harm anyone and that it is not his fault that his blood had been tainted by the whites. The end is also dramatic because his father forces True Son to leave the tribe and go back to white territory and never return to their tribe or he would be killed. The ending was good and definitely not predictable, but I wish that the story continued into what happened to him after he was exiled from the tribe.

The Light in The Forest - Part II

I understood and liked the purpose, experience, and values within the text. I think the purpose of the story was to show the perspective of the Indians on the American frontier. In the majority of my history classes I learned about the Europeans annexing land from the Native Americans without many details of what it was like for the Europeans and with almost no details of what it was like for the Indians. In the text I learned what it was like for many of the Native Americans which I found interesting. The experience of the text was seen as European and Native Americans clashed. You can see the experience throughout the plot as True Son deals with his white family and how he handles his situation mentally and on a personal level. I liked how you saw the world from the Indian perspective because True Son looks at the world in a completely different way than the white characters did in the story as well as the majority of people certainly do today. He views everything in nature as beautiful. Everything has a purpose, works in harmony, and is perfect in its natural state. The values expressed in the text were often from the Indian perspective because True Son never has a good connection on a personal level with his white father. Even though the hands of both sides are dirty, True Son often remarks that the white men kill and scalp innocent women and children and Indian men would never be so dishonorable. True Son also often thanks different parts of nature such as the sun, the moon, the earth itself, and the river because spiritually he considers them his family members.  I personally find his personal hatred of white customs more interesting because the way he rejects everyday things such as clothes or scheduled meals is somewhat humorous.  I connected to the text better in my opinion because the main character is around the same age as me. Reading the story from his perspective makes True Son’s opinions, emotions, and reactions similar to what I would possibly feel if I were in his place. I was definitely able to identify with the purpose, experience, and values expressed in the text because the author wrote the story with incredible detail which made all of the character’s actions fairly clear and understandable depending on whether they supported the whites or the Indians.

The Light in The Forest - Part I

The Light in The Forest by Conrad Richter is an example of a classic adventure story. It tells the story of a frontier boy raised by Indians. As a fan of American history, I found this story very interesting and even captivating. From this story I learned a lot about native culture and much more about the Indian’ perspective of white people.  The entire story is in itself a culture clash. However, numerous separate culture-based clashes appear throughout the plot. I found the background to the story very interesting. Although not all white men did this, they became notorious for killing any Indian they came across, including children. So when Indians retaliated they would occasionally capture and then foster a white child to essentially replace the child who had died. This is what happened to the main character of the story, John Cameron Butler. As a young boy, John was taken and adopted by a Lenni Lenape Indian warrior, he was renamed True Son. He was raised to think, feel, and fight like an Indian.  Then came the first major plot twist, at fifteen, True Son was ordered to go back to the white man after the Indians had made a treaty and agreed to return all their white captives. For True Son who absolutely detested the white men this was a nearly impossible task. He never considered himself white for a second. He was even convinced that he had an Indian heart, an Indian mind, and Indian blood.  A lot of problems are provoked by the fact that he could not understand that his people were white and not Indian. He hated his new father, his new house, his new family. He even loathed his name and every part of his white culture. He argued with his white father and uncle and disagreed with many of their views simply because the Indian’ views were different and in his opinion made perfect sense. After living with his white family for a while and slowly being forced into their customs and way of life I thought that the story would end with True Son accepting white society and culture. But when some of his old Indian friends show up at his home, his uncle kills one of them and True Son flees with his cousin. His eventual return to his Indian family is a happy section of the story, but In the end it is obvious that living with his white family has affected him even if he does not want to admit it.