The novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a War Novel, which is set…

Document 2 - Excerpt from All Quiet on the Western Front Historical Context: All Quiet On the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front. The novel was first published in November and December 1928 in a German newspaper and in book form in late January 1929. The below excerpt from the novel describes a gas attack. The dull thud of the gas-shells mingles with the crashes of the light explosives. A bell sounds between the explosions, gongs, and metal clappers warning everyone-Gas-Gas-Gaas. These first minutes with the mask decide between life and death: is it air tight? I remember the awful sights in the hospital: the gas patients who lay in day-long suffocation cough up their burnt lungs in clots. Cautiously, the mouth applied to the valve, I breathe. The gas still creeps over the ground. .. like a big, soft jelly-fish.... Inside the gas-mask my head booms and roars-it is nigh [almost] bursting. My lungs are tight, they breathe always the same hot, used up air, and the veins on my temple are swollen. feel I am suffocating. Source: All Quiet On the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque, 1929 2a. Based on this excerpt from All Quiet on the Western Front, explain Erich Maria Remarque's purpose for including this scene in his story.