Zugl.: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 2008

Erich Maria Remarque's use of simile in Im Westen nichts Neues contributes greatly to the depth of the narrative and dispels the notion that this anti-war novel is nothing more than a simple soldier's account of the First World War. Definitions of simile and metaphor have existed since Aristotle. This study, however, treats simile as the literary equal of metaphor. Simile can be an even more powerful literary device than metaphor when cleverly and properly used. Remarque purposefully chose his more than 150 similes, many containing animal or nature images. Nearly all are used to show vividly and honestly war's reality while at the same time dismissing war's glory as a lie. Remarque also employs simile for antithesis. Seen through the perspective of the author, Remarque, and the narrator, Paul Baumer, the many similes represent the development Baumer undergoes up until the story's tragic end.

Heideggers Philosophie erweist sich als die Suche nach dem Lebenssinn. Es geht ihm darum, wie der Einzelmensch sein eigenes Leben als ein sinnvolles Ganzes gestalten und führen soll. Es kommt dabei darauf an, ob das Individuum sich von der Masse befreien und mit dem eigenen Tod konfrontieren kann bzw. will. Unter diesen Umständen weist Heidegger auf die Vereinzelung der Person und ihre Erfahrung des Nichts hin. Das Dasein kann sich allein in der Erfahrung des Nichts als Seins vom Seienden als Ganzen abkehren. Sich über das Seiende im Ganzen erheben bedeutet Heidegger zufolge die metaphysische Betrachtungsweise. Die Existenz des Menschen ist für Heidegger genau das metaphysische Phänomen, nämlich unsere Bezugnahme auf die Welt als Ganzes. Diese kontemplative Haltung des Individuums hängt wiederum mit seiner Einstellung zur Gottesauffassung zusammen. Das Verständnis Gottes als eines Seienden führt zum unangemessenen Gottesverhältnis. Gott als das Sein ansehen kann das Gottesverhältnis zurechtsetzen. Die Bedeutung des Lebens erschließt sich erst dann, wenn das Individuum sich seiner Endlichkeit vor Gott als dem Sein bewusst ist. / This dissertation argues that the entire Heidegger’s Philosophy amounts to an exploration of the meaning of human life. For him, it is important in life to form and fulfil our own life as an integral whole. It is thus crucial to explore how we can do so, by freeing ourselves, each in our respective individual ways, from the influence of the masses and face resolutely up to our own individual death, by realising each one’s indiviualization and experiencing nothingness. Dasein our inauthentic being-there is dispersed only in the experience of Nothingness as Being per se. For Heidegger, transcendence beyond all entities/beings is the genuine metaphysical way of envisaging them. Human existence is for Heidegger just a metaphysical phenomenon, namely, our point of reference to the world as a whole. This contemlative attitude of the individual is connected further with his views of God. Understanding God as an entity, a mere being, leads to an inappropriate relationship to God, and should be redressed by regarding God as the Being per se. The meaning of life discloses itself only as an individual becomes aware of his/her finiteness before God as the Supreme Being.

The novel Im Westen Nichts Neues first appeared in Germany in January 1929 and became an overnight success. Its author, Erich Maria Remarque, was a shy, quiet man who had not anticipated such success. His novel was written to be a fictitious account of the lives of a few students-turned -soldier and their comrades in the front -line trenches of World War I. This was a unique perspective on the war. The earlier books about the war had been mostly the published, factual memoirs of former officers and as such were written from an elitist and nationalist point of view. Remarque's fictional characters, conversely, were young privates doing their duty and suffering through the dehumanizing effects of their military training and life at the front. They lost touch with their past and came to be able to see nothing in their future except war. These soldiers found themselves lost between a past with which they were no longer able to identify and a future in which, because of the terror and daily life-and-death struggle they currently faced, they could not imagine being able to take anything seriously. Coming out in favor of the novel were the critics aligned with the liberal and left -liberal political arenas. This group of critics proclaimed that the novel portrayed the truth about the war in all of its horror. Having been written from the perspective of the unknown German soldier, it, unlike any other heretofore published work about the war, told the story of the every day, non-elitist soldier and his thoughts. The novel was pacifistic in nature and was therefore in line with the current world opinion, following closely on the heels of the international signing of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact. On the other hand, the Communist left and the entire spectrum of the political right denounced Im Westen Nichts Neues as a lie and Remarque as an anti-German author bent on the degradation of the German national honor. The Communists decried the novel as being arbeiterfeindlich because it did not recognize the political- economic causes of the war and because it contained no call for the oppressed to revolt against the upper classes. They therefore deemed Remarque a member of the sterile-minded bourgeoisie. The rightists, in their denunciation of the novel, took exception to the lack of heroes and glorification of the war in the book. Kameradschaft was given the credit for heroism. This idea was repugnant to the nationalists, and in fact worked as a threat to their reason for existence. With Remarque further depicting the soldiers as acting instinctively to protect themselves from annihilation rather than fighting with thoughts of the glorious renewal of the fatherland, it was too much. They proclaimed the novel to be a lie which had been written by, among other descriptions of Remarque, a tender, pacifistic little soul who had never seen a battlefield in his life.

<p>This essay examines the use of geographic places (cities, countries, regions) in Judith Hermanns short story collection <em>Nichts als Gespenster</em>. As is being shown in the essay, the function of these places is in connection to the main conflicts and themes of the seven different stories a crucial part of Hermanns narrative.</p>

This essay examines the use of geographic places (cities, countries, regions) in Judith Hermanns short story collection Nichts als Gespenster. As is being shown in the essay, the function of these places is in connection to the main conflicts and themes of the seven different stories a crucial part of Hermanns narrative.

Literature, films, and even the daily news often address war, an event that unfortunately has been a constant in modern society. Large scale, modern warfare with global involvement began with the First World War, and following the war, a global war literature boom occurred. Two bestselling novels whose anti-war themes still resound today, Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front) by Erich Maria Remarque and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, emerged from this sea of literature. Both of these novels focus on the pain that is inherent in warfare and its detrimental effects on society as well as on individual soldiers. The graphic imagery and anti-war sentiment that is present in these novels has generated controversy throughout their histories; however, the popularity of both works has prevailed, and Remarque and Trumbo’s novels remain two of the most referenced in academic disciplines as well as in popular culture. This thesis explores the long-lasting success of these two works as anti-war novels, as measured by initial sales and popularity as well as by a plethora of mass cultural adaptations.

(Deutsch) Diese Arbeit versucht sich unter Einbeziehung interkultureller Quellen im Dialog mit Julio Cortázars Erzählung "der Verfolger" [el perseguidor] an einer Verfolgung der Jagd. Sie hofft, mit dem Begriff der Jagd und seiner Ausdifferenzierung in verschiedene Modi fundamentale Bewegungsrichtungen der menschlichen Existenz zu beschreiben. Die menschliche Existenz kommt dabei als spannungsreiches Zwischen ("inter") von sinngetragener medialisierter Bezogenheit und außer-sinnhafter realer Faktizität in den Blick. Im Verlaufe der Arbeit werden anhand ausgewählter Szenen der Erzählung nicht nur die Spannung des Zwischen selbst, sondern auch seine Pole zum Gegenstand des philosophischen Fragens gemacht. Schlüsselworte: Jagd, Cortázar, Zwischen (inter), Sinn, außer-Sinn, Reales, Leib, absolutes Nichts

Im ersten Teil unternimmt der Autor den Versuch, Martin Heideggers Philosophie als eine Ontologie der Kontingenz zu lesen. Eine solche Ontologie macht keine abschließenden Aussagen mehr über das, was ist, sondern darüber, wie das, was ist, durch Kontingenz geprägt ist. Hierfür identifiziert sie die unterschiedlichen Ereignisweisen von Welt, Erde, Gott und Sprache als diejenigen Strukturen und Konfigurationen, aus denen sich das Kontingente ereignet. Durch den Rekurs auf das Ereignis wird der Begriff des Nichts zu einem ihrer Schlüsselwörter. Er spiegelt sich in Heideggers Versuch wieder, Natur als Physis zu verstehen. Eine als Physis aufgefasste Natur offenbart ihre Ambivalenz gegenüber den technischen Deutungsversuchen der Neuzeit. Auf diese Weise konfrontiert sie den Menschen mit dessen eigener Kontingenz. Heidegger entwickelt hieraus eine spezifische Form des Umweltethos: Es geht nicht mehr darum, in der Natur unveränderliche Werte zu erblicken, vielmehr liegt das Normative in einer Haltung gegenüber der Kontingenz. Der zweite Teil wirft einen Blick auf das Denken in Japan. Dazu erfolgt ein detaillierter Vergleich des heideggerschen Nichts-Begriffs mit dem japanischen. Er zeigt, dass der japanische Nichts-Begriff es weder erlaubt, zu einer Ontologie der Kontingenz zu gelangen noch zu einem Umweltethos nach Heidegger. / The first part of this work approaches Heideggers philosophy as an Ontology of Contingency. An Ontology of Contingency doesn''t try to find final answeres to that what is. It rather tries to understand in what way that what is is in the light of contingency. To understand how contingency influences being, it identifies different Ways of Enowning (Ereignisweisen) such as world, earth, god and language as structural configurations that enable emergence. When trying to understand the Ontology of Contingency and its Ways of Enowning nothingness becomes one of its keywords. Nothingness is best understood whithin Heideggers notion of nature as physis. The ambivalence of physis preserves nature of technical interpretations of the modern age and thus konfronts man with his own contingency. From this Heidegger develops a specific notion of Environmental Ethos as opposed to environmental ethics. Heideggers Ethos does not rely on values but sees normative actions as a kind of mindset towards contingency. The second part of this work follows the idea that western philosophy and Japanese thinking can be connected by a common notion of nothingness and thus also yield a common notion of environmental ethics. However, the comparision of Heideggers notion of nothingness with Japanese concepts shows that the latter will not allow for a Ontology of Contingency nor an Environmental Ethos.

In diesem Text geht es um eine vergleichende Recherche zwischen dem deutschen Philosophen Ernst Cassirer und dem chinesischen Philosophen Laozi in Bezug auf ihr Verständnis für die kultur. Der Unterschied verdankt sich ihrem unterschiedlichen Verständnis für den Begriff „Nichts“. Das 1. Kapitel behandelt die Interpretation Cassirers und Laozis vom Begriff Nichts. Cassirer hat in drei Fragebereichen den Spielraum des Nichts beschränkt, und zwar erstens in der Frage nach dem verbindenden Band für die Ganzheit der Welt, zweitens nach der Einheit der Welt, und drittens nach dem ethischen Wert der Kultur. Im Vergleich dazu gibt Laozi dem Nichts einen positiven Spielraum in diesen drei Fragebereichen. Folglich dienen die drei Fragebereiche als die Basis der Vergleichbarkeit zwischen Cassirer und Laozi in den folgenden drei Kapiteln. Das 2. Kapitel erläutert, wie Cassirer und Laozi auf unterschiedliche Weise die Vielfältigkeit und gleichzeitig die Ganzheit der Welt erklären. Der erstere hebt ein repräsentierendes Verhältnis hervor, während der letztere ein genetisches Verhältnis behauptet. Es handelt sich beim 3. Kapitel um das Problem der Einheit. Cassirer und Laozi beide haben die Einheit in einem Prozess gesucht. Dieser Prozess ist für Cassirer der lebendige Prozess der Formung, während er für Laozi der lebendige Prozess der Entformung ist. Dazu redet Cassirer von einer Rückkehr von der forma formata zur forma formans. Laozi hingegen redet von einer Rückkehr vom Sein zum Nichtsein. Das 4. Kapitel behandelt die Wertfrage in Hinsicht der Kultur. Cassirer und Laozi weisen der Freiheit unterschiedliche Definitionen zu. Folglich weist Cassirer der Kultur eine positive Beurteilung zu, und Laozi fällt ein ethisch negatives Urteil über die Kultur. Die Möglichkeit einer Kombination von Cassirers positiver Einstellung zur Kultur und Laozis negativer Einstellung zur Kultur besteht in der praktischen Bedeutung eines subjektiven Zustands des Selbstvergessens bei der Arbeit. / The text deals with a comparative research between the German Philosopher Ernst Cassirer and the Chinese Philosopher Laozi in relationship with their understanding of the culture. The differences between them are owed to their different understanding of the concept “nothingness”. The Chapter 1 is about the interpretation of Cassirer and Laozi of the concept “nothingness”. Cassirer limits the play space of the nothingness in three areas of questions: first the question about the connecting bond for the entirety of the world, secondly about the unity of the world, and thirdly about the ethical value of the culture. In comparison with this Laozi gives the nothingness much positive play space within these three areas of questions. Therefore the three question areas serve as the basis of the comparability between Cassirer and Laozi in the following three chapters. The Chapter 2 describes how Cassirer and Laozi explain the variety and at the same time the entirety of the world in different ways. The former emphasizes a representing relationship, while the latter maintains a genetic relationship. The Chapter 3 deals with the problem of the unity. Both Cassirer and Laozi search for the unity during a process. For Cassirer this process is the living process of shaping of form, while for Laozi the living process of releasing from form. For it Cassirer talks about a return from forma formata to forma formans. However Laozi talks about a return from being to nonbeing. The Chapter 4 treats the value question in regard to the culture. Cassirer and Laozi assign different definition to the freedom. Therefore Cassirer gives the culture a positive evaluation, while Laozi makes an ethically negative judgment over the culture. The possibility of a combination of Cassirer’s positive attitude to the culture and Laozi’s negative attitude to the culture exists in the practical meaning of a subjective self-forgetting status at work.