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 cru...