All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque Essay

In All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the themes associated with the war was the inhumanity of mankind. The motif of animal instincts between characters showcased this abandonment of humanity. In addition, the strong theme of nationalism throughout this time period encouraged the loss of individuality. Lastly, men in positions of authority in the novel dehumanized soldiers by abusing their position of power. Overall, the events of the war promoted the development of the inhumanity of mankind through recurring animal instincts, nationalism, and power-abusive men.

  Erich Maria Remarque's classic war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with the many ways in which World War I affected people's lives, both the lives of soldiers on the front lines and the lives of people on the homefront. One of the most profound effects the war had was the way it made the soldiers see human life. Constant killing and death became a part of a soldier's daily life, and soldiers fighting on all sides of the war became accustomed to it. The atrocities and frequent deaths that the soldiers dealt with desensitized them to the reality of the vast quantities of people dying daily. The title character of the novel, Paul

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

"A wounded soldier? I shout to him-no answer- must be dead." The dead body has fallen out the coffin and the coffin has been unearthed because of the shelling. Even the dead and buried cannot rest in peace during this war. This just adds to the horror of the situation Paul is in.

He states that when he goes home, his family will be shocked to hear this language. Paul treats his lingual freedom as privilege that soldiers have, and shows the benefits of living a soldier’s life. He refers to the front as if it were a paradise, for he can use vulgar language and not worry about manners and decorum. He treats his service as a time for relaxation, recreation, and a little excitement. This attitude becomes short-lived as the realities of war sink in. When Paul volunteers for reconnaissance one night, he becomes stranded in No Man’s Land (the area between opposing trenches) and begins to realize the brutality of war and starts to lose his own humanity. At the beginning of the book, Paul shows care towards his fellow soldiers and treats his service as an adventure by his education of the recruits and his excitement towards the boundaries of his vocabulary.

In war, both violence and fear revokes a soldier’s humanity. These elements of war cause a person to shut down their emotional instincts, which causes the soldiers to mature rapidly by taking innocence along with joy and happiness in life. Through the experiences that the soldiers encounter, their humanity is compromised. Thus, as war strips soldiers of their innocence, they start to become disconnected from themselves and others. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque illustrates the negative effects war has on a soldier’s humanity, through his use of Paul’s books and the potato pancakes by revealing the soldiers loss of emotion that causes them to become detached from society. Through these symbols they deepen the theme by visually depicting war’s impact on Paul. Paul’s books helps the theme by depicting how the war locked his heart to old values by taking his innocence. Likewise the potato pancakes reveal Paul’s emotional state damaged by the war with his lack of happiness and gratitude.

Along with personal feelings, the same goes for everyone Paul witnessing his best friend’s death have impacted their group so that they cannot feel or care for each other. After a battle that left many injured. While Paul rests he thinks of how everyone is left on their own, claiming, "We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our hunted glance lights on the form of some other man. We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill" (Remarque, 116). During another day in the trenches Paul sees many bodies everywhere, soldiers being killed in front of him. Losing everyone that was close to him has caused him to lose himself mentally making him unstable. He carries the pressure of telling the families which furthermore carriers his depression. He carries a comrade’s boots as they are passed down from soldiers after each owner dies, Paul carries these boots to represent unimportance of human life. In addition to young soldiers have to follow and look up to older generation and higher rank officers which lead to betrayal. Propaganda played a huge role in World War 1 giving everyone biased opinions and bad judgements of others. These opinions gave Paul a false perspective of older generations.

The French soldier dies an agonizingly painful and prolonged death; his gurgling and whimpering haunting Paul, but when the soldier finally dies, the resulting silence is even more haunting and debilitating. “Paul describes the trenches, the shelling, the screams of wounded horses and men, the poison gas attack, and the rain that drenches everything. [He] describes the tension and the horror of a major battle, with the confusion, the noise, and death turning the soldiers into numbed, unthinking machines.” (All). Paul recognizes how war forces people to think and act in ways that differ from their values and beliefs, as they are desperate to survive. Remarque uses imagery and sensory details to skillfully formulate a raw and grisly atmosphere that leaves no aspect hidden. Towards the end of the novel, many of Paul’s comrades have died, and he is the only person left in his class who is alive. He expresses the desolation and misery he feels, “I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.” (Remarque 295). Paul has nothing left to lose at this point, so he faces his enemies free of fear and obligation to return back to his friends and his home. His sorrowful tone conveys his indifference towards death and his desire

While on leave, Paul also visits his father and some of his father's friends, but does not wish to speak to them about the war. The men are "curious [about the war] in a way that [Paul finds] stupid and distressing." They try to imagine what war is like but they have never experienced it for themselves, so they cannot see the reality of it. When Paul tries to state his opinion, the men argue that "[he] sees only [his] general sector so [he is] not able to judge." These men believe they know more about the war and this makes Paul feel lost. He realizes that "they are different men here, men [he] can not understand..." and Paul wants to be back with those he can relate to, his fellow soldiers. Paul wishes he had never gone on leave because out there "[he] was a soldier, but [at home] he is nothing but an agony to himself." When Paul returns to the battlefield, he is excited to be with his comrades. When he sees his company, "[Paul] jumps up, pushes in amongst them, [his] eyes searching," until he finds his friends. It is then

Later that night, they trade food with the women for sex. On their way to the girls’ house, the soldiers “are glowing and full of a lust for adventure” (Remarque 146). Paul does not speak the same language as these girls or even know their names, yet he uses them as a channel for his sexual frustrations. Shortly after this event, Paul receives a leave of absence. Nevertheless, he cannot get away from the war fully. When he is home he tries to remember moments of his youth: “Images float through my mind, but they do not grip me, they are mere shadows and memories” (Remarque 172). No matter how hard he tries, he cannot reconnect to his childhood memories. Because of this encounter with the women, Paul is a dynamic character who regresses due to the fact the war and this specific memory wipes away his childhood and fundamentally, his

In the book, Paul talks about how the war has affected him and changed him over time. Also, he talks about how comradery has helped him, he says, “We did not break down but we adapted ourselves...But by far the most important result...arose out of the war comradeship.”(26-7). This means Paul and the other comrades did not let the war and death of his friends break them down, they adapted to what was going on around and this was because of comradeship. This applies to Paul’s fear of death because one of Paul’s very close friends, Kantorek was on his deathbed and later died which scared Paul. Paul used his fellow comrades to help him through these tough times and he adapted to the fact that death was going to be prevalent in his life and he could lose some of his best friends. This helped him face his fear of death in the end because he was able to adapt to each conflict that arose throughout the book with the help of his fellow comrades. During a battle Paul is separated from his friends and fellow comrades and finds himself hiding from shelling by himself. Later on, Paul hears familiar voices and feels comforted when he realizes it is his fellow comrades, he says, “They are more to me than life, these voices...they are the voices of my comrades...I belong to them and they belong to me; we all share the same fear.”(212). This means Paul values the voices of his fellow comrades and they

Lost generation is the idea of an unfulfilled generation coming to maturity during a period of instability (New Oxford American Dictionary). The idea of lost generation first started with writers such as Ernest Hemmingway after having served time in the war felt a disconnection to his prewar self. In the book, All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque wrote about war and included details that were often kept as a secret. A very prevalent theme in Remarque’s novel is the loss of innocence, which ultimately leads a generation of soldiers to become known as the lost generation. World War One caused a sense of instability and uncertainty in its young men, ultimately leading the soldiers to lose their innocence and questions their sense of self.

He found that he had to change so he didn’t need to feel the pain that war brought among the soldiers. He cannot be present in a normal setting. When he finally returns home, which seems to be every soldiers dream, he cannot find emotion to feel happy about it. It doesn’t feel the same as before he went to war. He feels “strangeness” which demonstrates he doesn’t feel comfortable there as he once did. The only place Pauls feels a belonging now is in war where he fits in with all the other desensitized soldiers. Paul and his friends feel hopeless about the idea of leaving war because of what they have experienced has ruined them. They are not the same people as they were before the

During the novel, Paul progresses a great deal emotionally. In the beginning of the book, Paul is “crammed with vague ideas which gave to life, and to the war also, an ideal and almost romantic character” (Remarque 10). This shows that he is happy and almost looking forward to the war. Later in the book, Paul says “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces” (Remarque 39). Paul has realized what war is, and is not satisfied with his situation in life, which can be attributed to the things he has seen. Towards the end of the story, Paul says “I know nothing of life but despair, death,

While the disconnection allows the soldier to adapt to the brutal war environment, it inhibits them from re-entering society. When he takes his leave, he is unable to feel comfortable at home. Even if Paul had survived the war physically, he most likely would not have integrated back into society suitably. The emotional disconnection inhibits soldiers from mourning their fallen friends and comrades. However, Paul was somewhat less than able to completely detach himself from his feelings, and there are several moments in the when he feels himself pulled down by emotion. These rush of feelings indicate the magnitude to which war has automated Paul to cut himself off from feeling, as when he says, with unbridled understatement, “Parting from my friend Albert Kropp was very hard. But a man gets used to that sort of thing in the army (p. 269) .”