Coexisting Good and Evil
Constantly searching for the good, incredibly submerged, in the seemingly evil world allows those experiencing sadness to escape the grief, and focus on the positive. As this is heavily practiced, it seems quite miraculous that such beauty and good can coexist with darkness and evil. Displayed through beautiful imagery, Remarque conveys this idea of good in a truly evil world, and how it aids people through rough patches in their lives.
As war is a truly evil place, filled with unusual violence, disturbing distortions, and murderous death, beauty must be sought if one wishes to survive. When experiencing a death of one we long, we naturally do not want to focus on the sadness, but rather on the happiness or past memories of that lost person; finding the good in the evil situation. In order to get through the morning of Kemmerich, Baumer goes to his designated “happy place,” and drifts into the world of good, “Thoughts of girls, of flowery meadows, of white clouds...”(33). Obviously not wanting to face the death and evil, Baumer searches deeply for the good in his world, and solely focuses on those peaceful and happy memories. Because there is such paradox of good and evil coexisting in this world, it allows for beautiful miracles to occur—healing of those deeply wounded.
Allie, this was a great response and I loved the topic you chose. It made me think about how you can't have good in a world without evil, because if everything was good, you would never realize how good it was. Do you think that because of the need for a little bit of evil in our lives, it is necessary for us to hope that something bad happens to us so that we can truly appreciate the good? Just a question. I thought your writing was awesome, and the only thing I would change would be to fix your lead-in to the quote, it seemed a little bit awkward, but it didn't take away from the piece at all. Great job!
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