evil is an all too present reality. While at the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy said, "Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.". In his groundbreaking book, All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich M. Remarque seeks to spread this pacifistic message and anti-war sentiment, after the devastation brought by the First World War (Remarque 1982). As the biggest, most technological advanced and deadliest war of its time, this new breed of warfare has left ripples all across
Maria Remarque once said about his novel, All Quiet on the Western Front: “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 shells, were destroyed by the war”. War has a lasting impact on soldiers and changes them significantly. All quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a book about Several
The War to End All Wars, also known as World War 1, began on July 28, 1914, because of an assassination, in Europe. It lasted until November 11, 1918. The total death toll of the war is 37 million. World War 1 ravaged the land across Europe destroying countless towns and cities. It was one of the deadliest conflicts to ever occur in the human race. “All Quiet On The Western Front”, is a novel that describes the physical and mental stress of a soldier during World War 1, along with daily life of a
preceding war novels to All Quiet on the Western Front, misrepresented or overlooked the anguish of war, in favor of more resplendent ideals such as glory, honor, or nationalism. The predominant issue of All Quiet on the Western Front is the terrible atrocities of war. The reality that is portrayed in the novel is that there was no glory or honor in this war, only a fierce barbarity that actually transformed the nature of human existence into irreparable, endless affliction, destroying the soldiers long
the lives of many men as they were lured to abandon their lives and fight. This group of men who have difficulty fitting back into the society after war is known as the “lost generation”. Similarly, Eric Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, tells the story of the generation of young men who feel alienated and lost in society after participating in the war. As they begin thinking about their post-war life, the soldiers realize how war transforms their generation into a group of individuals
Catastrophe stuck in the year 1914 with the assassination of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand. For the next four years the cataclysm of the First World War followed. Many nations, superior in their own being, were eager to join the war thinking it would only last for a few months and end by Christmas. This was a chance for nations to assert their superiority and leadership; however, a harsh realization was soon to follow. The assassination, meager as it might be compared to the whole war,
Congress? Obviously this is not so. The common man must take up arms so that his leaders are safe to play politics. Even while varying vastly in perspective, style, and specific themes , Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front possess sentiments similar to the aforementioned one: The effect of institutionalized political, social, and militarized authority on an individual and the idiotic bureaucratic practices of the military. Heller heavily satirizes societal
In All Quiet on the Western Front author and World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque tells the story of a young soldier named Paul Bäumer who enlists in the German army with a group of his classmates. In the novel the reader comes discover the many horrors that Paul has to endure during his service before his untimely death in October 1918, only weeks before the war ended. The events that happen in the novel to Paul and his friends in his company during the war are very similar, if not identical
All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1929 novel written by Erich Remarque. “All Quiet on the Western Front” mainly focusses on a few main characters: Paul Bäumer is a German soldier fighting down in the trenches during World War I. He is also the main character and narrator of the novel. Stanislaus Katczinsky is Paul's best friend in the army and is known as Kat . The novel begins with Paul and his friends going to war. After only two weeks of fighting, there are only 80 out of the 150 men still
soldiers mentally and physically. World War I was a violent and distressing war; men came home with mental illnesses and never were fully able to sink back into society. Through these lasting effects common civilians with no affiliation were unaware to the consequences. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque investigates the damaging effects of war on an individual’s identity using Paul Bäumer as a representation for all soldiers; he draws specific attention to the continuing loss of purpose and