Comparing and Contrasting Themes from Different Books

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Comparing and contrasting themes from different books
Essay 1: The role of class in Schnitzler's 'La Ronde' and Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front
Wealth, power, and prestige are all statuses that constitute social space ordering and ranking of people. Since time immemorial, these social rankings have existed, creating boundaries between individuals and acceptable interactions. Individuals organize themselves into conflict groups that clash and struggle with their interests and status relationships. In places where authority exists, people segregate along those in command and those who obey. These classes define people's cultural behaviors and outline their individual societal roles. Society can only be complete when all the required occupational functions are present. Therefore, an individual's social class and background are significant in equipping a person with the needed skills and outlooks for the functionality of their occupation. This essay explores the role class plays in two literary works, 'La Ronde' and 'All Quiet on the Western Front by looking at the class differences among the characters and how their interaction communicate the idea that social position is of little or no significance when it comes to love, human pain, and death.
The two books explore the idea that class struggles are a part of every given society through the unique stories of love and war. Schnitzler's 'La Ronde' grasps this idea by drawing characters from society's classes. For instance , two different classes, the whore flirts with the soldier and the count. The Whore's interaction with the soldier is less satisfying than that of the count because the encounter with the soldier is short as the soldier comments, "How quickly we've got back. The band's still playing that same piece" (Schnitzler, 56). This occurrence is contrary to expectation whereby people from closely related classes bond better than from highly distinct classes. The book has many scenes, each of which features two characters. The characters get attracted to one another, flirt, and finally end up in bed together. One character from the first scene gets involved with another character in the second scene, and this continues until the last scene whereby a character from the ninth scene who had not taken part in the eighth scene gets involved with the remaining character in the first scene who had not taken part in the second scene. This rounding reflects the title of the book 'Le Ronde,' which means rounding things off to insinuate that the world is round and everything comes back to where it started. It is worth noting how the class levels of the characters increase with every scene, beginning with the whore, all the way t the poet and the actress. This book reflects the sexual immorality across Vienna's social classes and professions, and it offers a concise illustration of how primordial sexual contact contravenes all class and social boundaries.
In Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, the book revolves around Paul Baumer, a young German man who enlists in the army. Paul and his friends from school joined the military following their teacher's patriotic speeches. However, after the brutal ten weeks of training under the cruel corporal Himmelstoss and subsequent pitiless life on the front, they recognize that the ideals of nationalism and patriotism that made them enlist onto the army, in the first place, were mere empty clichés. Paul regrets, "With our young, awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into a renunciation of personality such as one would not ask of the meanest servants" (Remarque, 18). By this, he admonishes the older generation and his teacher for fooling them. Their hope for existence is dwindling by knowing that they are beyond recovery from the war's mental scarring. The reality of war finally hits Paul when he kills Gerard Duval, a French soldier who happens to jump into the shell hole he had hidden.
Secondly, the characters in the two books communicate that class in society is a foundational thing, and everyone knows, only that no one would wish to belong to the lower cadre. In 'La Ronde,' the ten characters, the whore, the soldier, the parlor maid, the young gentleman, the young wife, the husband, the little miss, the poet, the actress, and the count come from all levels of the society. In the beginning scene, the playwright portrays class as a division in privileges when the whore is willing to be in bed with the soldier free of charge but rules out civilians by asserting that they have to pay for her services (Schnitzler, 51). In the book's plot, it is unbeknown to all of the characters that they are all linked, and perhaps this reveals' the society's dirty secret that the high organization would not want the playwright to broadcast the facts publicly, but remain privately accepted that affairs were familiar to the point that the servants seduced their masters.
In 'All Quiet on the Western Front, the playwright vividly portrays classes as something fundamental, and everyone knows about it. After Paul enlists in the army, his company consists of two types of individuals. Paul and his classmates are well-schooled and occupy a higher level in life than the others who are children to peasants and laborers. Paul, who is the mouthpiece of the playwright Remarque in the novel, makes the reader aware of the different classes of the characters in the way he introduces them. Paul mentions his classmates first, and this ordering communicates how highly he thinks of his classmates than he does for the other ordinary soldiers, who are less educated.
Moreover, when Paul introduces the other ordinary soldiers, he dedicates a different paragraph to separate the two classes. In the mess line, Paul shows the seniority of his group when he says, "close behind us were our friends" (Remarque, 2). The statement indicates that their friends are behind them physically and behind them in terms of social status. Thus, the issue of class ethnocentrism is quite evident in 'All Quiet on the Western Front. However, all this fades when reality dawns on Paul when he thinks about being swayed by the ignorance of privilege and says, "The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy" (Remarque, 10), an indication that the high-class people are not always the privileged ones.
The role of class in the two texts reflects society by pointing to how class membership is a form of social stratification based on esteem and wealth, hence a division in privileges. However, all these are irrelevant when it comes to love, pain, and death because whatever the class to which a person belongs, they all face the eventualities in the same way. For instance, in La Ronde, in as much as the high society would not want to mix with the low-class citizens, love and abuse of love bring them together, and in as much as they know that these practices are going on in the society, they choose to hide them from the public for fear of shame. Therefore, in this context, 'La Ronde' functions to reflect society. In Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' Even though the classes of people joining the army are evident at the start of the book, the classes finally dissolve to some extent when everyone enlists for the army following the belief in patriotism and nationalism. The issue of class is absent further into the book when the soldiers are on the war front as pain, suffering, and death affect each of them just the same way. Paul says, "Our thoughts are the clay, they are molded with the changes of the days;—when we are resting they are good; under fire, they are dead" (Remarque, 239). This assertion shows that class levels are not present on the battlefield, for the war has put them to the same level. Therefore, in some situations, the class does not matter, but the human.
Essay 2
The role of power and Powerlessness in Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front and Kafka's 'The Penal Colony'
Force, influence, and authority are the three types of power. While force may come via physical, psychological, or social power, influence suggests an exercise of personal power. At the same time, authority depends on a person's standing via traditional, legal, or rational authority. Power influences the degree to which an individual believes he, she can take in a given task, or goal and some may view it as a position in a relationship. On the other hand, powerlessness can be the lack of strength or...