All Quiet On The Western Front Essay

Erich Maria Remarque’s literary breakthrough, All Quiet on the Western Front, describes two stories. It meticulously chronicles the thoughts of a soldier in World War I while simultaneously detailing the horrors of all wars; each tale is not only a separate experience for the soldier, but is also a new representation of the fighting. The war is seen through the eyes of Paul Baumer whose mindset is far better developed in comparison to his comrades’. His true purpose in the novel is not to serve as a representation of the common soldier, but to take on a godly and omniscient role so that he may serve as the connection between WWI and all past and future melees of the kind. Baumer becomes the

In the incredible book, All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, the reader follows Paul Baumer, a young man who enlisted in the war. The reader goes on a journey and watches Paul and his comrades face the sheer brutality of war. In this novel, the author tries to convey the fact that war should not be glorified. Through bombardment, gunfire, and the gruesome images painted by the author, one can really understand what it would have been like to serve on the front lines in the Great War. The sheer brutality of the war can be portrayed through literary devices such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

In regards to war, Gandhi once commented, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.” In other words, violence masks its potential impairment by seeming innocuous at first; however, the true damage, often permanent, can be seen chronically. The idea reflected by Gandhi’s quote can be proven through an examination of World War I and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Although soldiers and governments in both worlds initially saw honor and security of their countries as valid reasons for going to war, what ultimately came of that conflict were both immediate consequences, such as loss of innocence and development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (often referred to as PTSD) among young soldiers, as well as permanent, long-term consequences, like the hatred the war had spurred in Germans which ultimately ensued to Hitler’s rise to power.

Throughout time, war has changed a person in both physical and emotional ways. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque strived to write about the true realities of war which contradicted the common, romantic belief about war. This novel captures and shifts the audience into a world so different than their home and allows them to almost experience war first-hand. All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a normal teenager named Paul Baumer who went from a typical school in Germany, to the front lines of World War 1. As we read the story, we could feel the many changes that Paul experienced, from just arriving at the front, all the way until his death. Two of many horrific changes that Paul experienced are the

Through the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, novelist Erich Maria Remarque provides a commentary on the dehumanizing tendencies of warfare. Remarque continuously references the soldiers at war losing all sense of humanity. The soldiers enter the war levelheaded, but upon reaching the front, their mentality changes drastically: “[they] march up, moody or good tempered soldiers – [they] reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals” (Remarque 56). This animal instinct is essential to their survival. When in warfare, the soldiers’ minds must adapt to the environment and begin to think of the enemy as objects rather than human beings. It is this defensive mechanism that allows the soldiers to save

            Baümer has "grown accustomed to it. War is the cause of death like influenza and dysentery.  The deaths are merely more frequent, more varied and terrible."  He has rid himself of all feelings and thoughts.  His emotions lie buried in the earth along with the soldiers who fell prey to them.  His dullness protects him from going mad at the sight of a slaughtered comrade or butchered friend.  He wants to live at all costs so "every expression of his life must serve one purpose and one purpose only, preservation of existence, and he is absolutely focused on that" (page #).  The cost of life is the death of his emotions; his survival depends on it."  Every shell that falls, every shot that fires, a soldier must face the possible certainty of death.  To Baumer, death carries hand grenades, a bayonet and a rifle to take away what he has long protected -- his life.

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war” (Remarque Prologue). All Quiet on the Western Front recounts the tale of six German warriors who volunteered to battle in World War I, and it reports their hardships mentally, religiously, and physically. The novel is told from the point of view of one staggeringly perceptive youthful warrior, Paul Bäumer, who uncovered subtle elements of life on the Western Front. Creator Erich Maria Remarque himself had battled on the Western Front when he was eighteen years of age, and he endured a few wounds. The repulsions of what he saw as an officer stayed with him.

In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque, "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, and "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso, the themes of war are exemplified. From misinterpretation of the war from commoners and the public to the trauma and tragedies of war on the battlegrounds. In Remarque's famous war novel, men are applauded for going on a death march to the Western Front. When Paul Baumer is called to go on a seventeen-day leave, he meets a headmaster that calls him in a bar to talk of the war.

The novel, “All Quiet On The Western Front”, centers its self around the events that shape the lives of the soldiers involved in the German army, of World War I. The novel takes focus on the actions of a young, enlisted soldier, named Paul Bäumer, who, through his words, gives the audience a window into the hardship that he, and his classmates, are bearing, while in combat. The novel not only delivers the emotional aspect of the fight, but also, sheds light on the real life, gruesome situations surrounding the lives of the soldiers, to ultimately, tell of a generation of young men who must live, but who must now also, inhabit a form of self mercilessly annihilated by battle.

Erich Maria Remarque is quoted as saying “It is very [odd] that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.” Erich Maria Remarque was a German writer, author of the famous, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, and was one of the many influential authors who wrote in the literary time of Modernism. Remarque was an important figure, and his books highlight both the uselessness of war, and the hellish realities of it.

However, the book, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” portrays the life of a young German soldier who learned that loyalty toward his country would mean to stand up and bear arms, and be willing to take a bullet for all those brave soldiers fighting against nearly all of the countries in the war. Paul Baumer, his name, was a nineteen year old citizen of Germany. After listening to stirring patriotic speeches, mostly from a teacher named Kantorek, Paul and several of his friends went to join the army voluntarily. Soon after experiencing times of harsh obstacles and struggles, they began to question the ingenuity of their decision. Despite all their fears and lack of hope, the young men did not lose their courage and continued to train hard for upcoming

In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the main character and narrator, Paul Baumer, is a young man just graduated from high school. He enlists to fight for Germany during World War I because of a misguided sense of extreme nationalism, and the hunt for glory. However, when he experiences the horrors of fighting on the front first-hand, the realities of war begin to shape him into someone unrecognizable. Remarque utilizes characterization and intense imagery to illustrate how war affects not only a person, but a whole generation of those who are about to come of age.

In war, as in every situation, people are going to have their own opinions and their own sides of the story. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, the reader is provided with the perspective of the narrator, Paul Baum, a German soldier in the First World War. Also as in every situation, every person has their own unique experiences and feelings. That being said, some events can cause an overwhelming communal feeling among those in participation, and WWI did just that. Paul Baum, as he claims, voices the feelings and experiences of a generation in All Quiet on the Western Front, and justly so, as he experienced the war first-hand, and witnessed the experiences of others.

In July of 1914 an unprecedented conflict erupted on European continent. Following Germany’s unwavering commitment to Austria’s cause, the great powers of Europe engaged in the First World War. This conflict saw the death of over seventeen million men, women, and children in both civilian and military settings. While civilians were at many points exposed to violence, the majority of fighting was concentrated along the western front. Millions of soldiers died along the front. Those who returned from the conflict brought with them enduring scars that no peacetime could make fade. In his novel All Quite on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque utilizes the memoir of a single German combatant, Paul Bäumer, to convey the horrors of trench warfare,

I really enjoyed reading All Quiet On The Western Front. This book started off showing the young men ready to take on war, until the first bombing in the trenches takes place. I found this book to be heart breaking, but it doesn’t veer to far from the truth. WWI is described very vividly throughout this piece. In this piece you really understand first of all, how these young men loose that innocence to war in all reality. These young men some number of 200,000 of them under the age of 18 lost their childhood. It’s absolutely nothing like the luxurious life I live today. These soldiers are frequently subjects to physical danger. Life suddenly becomes serious