Analysis Of All Quiet On The Western Front By Erich Remarque

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

     “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war

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.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a book that describes the different struggles of World War 1 from the perspective of someone who was there but may have not necessarily experienced it all. In the book, there is a man named Paul. “…Here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human limb” (208). When Paul is at home, he is having fun with friends and thinking that going to school is so difficult and then he goes to war, and he sees a person blown into pieces and watches thousands of men dying. It is a very different life.

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is story of the fictional character Paul Baumer and his troop Troop 9 as they battle in World War I on the Western Front for Germany. This novel differs from most war novels in that it does not portray the men as valiant soldiers protecting their country. The way that the story is told strips away the romanticized view warfare and portrays the raw emotions that come with being on the front lines of a battle. As both Paul Baumer’s life and the battle progress, Paul’s values, along with those of the other soldiers, evolve until they culminate in Baumer’s own passing.

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

“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 the novel All Quiet on the Western Front Erich M. Remarque realistically describes the brutalities of war through the protagonist Paul Baumer. Adults encourage the young men to become soldiers since they are the “Iron Youth”(18) as told by their society. The war turns out to be a hellish world where the young men experience horrors such as witnessing the innocent suffer, and taking the lives from men on the other side of the battlefield. As the novel draws to a close, Paul is seen alone, losing his family of comrades to death; including his best friend Kat, who he found to be like a father. War has broken him down to the point that he slowly begins to find death more appealing. Erich’s ability to use forlorn

“I think it [war] is more of a kind of fever. No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn’t want the war, the others say the same thing- and yet half the world is in it all the same. (206)” Erich Remarque describes how war is an odd sort of happening through Albert Kropp, one of the most intelligent young men of Paul Bäumer’s company. Remarque, himself a German World War 1 veteran, uses the characters of Paul’s company to channel his frustrations from his experiences during the war. The vivid imagery used to describe bombardments and life at the front allows the reader to visualize the reality of warfare. It’s bloody, messy, and repulsive. Extreme detail aids Remarque in exposing the atrocities of war, and its repercussions. All Quiet on the Western Front focuses on an anti-war theme, and how war itself has no purpose other than to be savage and wasteful.

World War I differed from previous wars in the essence that technological sophistication of weaponry such as artillery, poison gas and machine-guns created a vehement war with a massive number of casualties. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, German World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque delineates the experiences that German soldiers face on the restless front, and the toll that the physical conditions and the mental stress take on the deterioration of the youth of each soldier battling on the terrain. Remarque’s war novel strays away from the romantic and glorifying thought of war in order to emphasize the hardships war forced upon the men who fought for their country. The weapons that are in the hands of the men on the front lines become their livelihood, and the terrain of the battle are the only things separating a common man and a man marked by the scars of war. At some point, war no longer becomes a fight between enemies from two different countries, it becomes a battle between one’s self and the urge to resist barbaric and animalistic acts when in dire situations.

World War one was a war of severe tribulation. resulting in over 50 million deaths, it was one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. Known as the “Western Front”, the border of Germany and France was the site to some of the bloodiest battles of the war. There are very few novels that truly exemplify the events that took place along this front. Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Displays important themes, imagery, and symbolism, that help show how this great war affected the soldiers, the countries involved and the world.

The novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Eric Remarque is a powerful anti-war novel. It is about a young man of nineteen who fights in the German army at the western front. He is accompanied by his friends and soon realise that war isn’t glorious or honourable, and they live in constant terror. Throughout the novel Remarque describes the physical and psychological horrors of war as well as how they have become the lost generation and the question of who is the enemy. He includes many writing techniques to describe each topic, especially the physical horrors of war.

War is capable of devastating the minds, personalities and the way they view life, in young men. In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and comrades start to lose their innocence throughout the war. Paul and his comrades enlist into war the because they are pressured by Kantorek, headmaster of Paul’s school. But as the war goes on they are backed into corners. They face hardships, difficult decisions and choices that had to be made. Paul and his comrades are young innocents stepping into the heart of the war, but start to lose their innocence because of violence, carnage, and loss of life.

The awful experiences of war change soldiers in many ways that they did not even realize in All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque. The story of young German soldiers is told to describe what life was truly like on the front lines in World War I. For the innocent soldiers, going home on leave proves difficult as they are forced to face the truth about their life. After being convinced to join, the war is not what is promised and the soldiers are changed fundamentally because of what they learn and experience on the battle field.

War has been known to change people. The things people see in war make them change the way they see the world. The destruction of buildings, houses, families and of entire countries give both soldiers and civilians things like ptsd, witch stands for post traumatic stress disorder. Lots of people who experience war often write books on their experience. Throughout history, many authors have used their war experience to write their novels.