Analysis Of Erich Richard Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

     “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

“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial, I believe we are lost” (Remarque 123). World War I is a tragic event that occurred in 1914 to 1918. Paul Baumer and the rest of the soldiers in the novel of “All Quiet in the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque are lost; they are broken from the fist World War, they don’t know anything aside from War, and they have lost their innocence during the years of maturation. When the young men heard about the War, they were excited, and full of life, they thought they were going on an adventure.

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.

Imagine you’re lying on the muddy, damp Earth and all around you can hear the screams of people you know dying. Shells explode, bullets race through the air, and poisonous gas seeps around you, all with the intent to harm you in some way. Yet, you willingly put yourself in that position day after day, year after year. The question surrounding this situation is, why? Who would be masochistic enough to choose to put their lives in danger and live in the most perilous environment possible? Two very different books give us insight into the thoughts of the soldiers who continuously put themselves in these environments. Your Death Would Be Mine by Martha Hanna and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque lets us into the minds of Paul Pireaud and Paul Baumer as they try to survive life as a soldier in the Great War. I argue that Pireaud and Baumer had very different reasons for continuing to fight despite having suffered beyond belief. In this paper I will analyze how the varying degrees of patriotism, brotherhood, family life at home, and age affected how these two men endured the treacherous life on the front of World War I.

In “all quite on the western front,” Erich Maria Remarque tells the a story of six young German men who volunteer in World War I, at the age of eighteen. Remarque himself fought in World War I, but because of injuries sustained in battle he was forced to withdraw from the warzone. He spent rest of the war in the hospital where he had a realization about the nature of war The novel is told from the point of view on one young soldier named, Paul Baumer is an attentive soldier, discloses how life really was really on the war front. Through the character of Baumer, Remarque describes his fears, and experiences and what he went through as a soldier in the war.

Remarque claims that,“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). All Quiet on the Western Front is considered one of the greatest war books of all time. In the novel, Erich Maria Remarque cleverly weaves political and social issues with symbolism, imagery, and metaphors to help illustrate his arguments.

In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque, starting with the epigraph of the book, defaces the didactic tips that the war burdens Bäumer with, "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" (1). A variety of books are written about wars, aggression, and the vast majority of them are full of patriotic pathos and romantic passages. As the novel's raconteur and protagonist, Bäumer is the focal figure in All Quiet on the Western Front and fills in as the mouthpiece for Remarque's reflections about war. All through the novel, Bäumer's internal identity is stood out from the way the war drives him to act and feel. His recollections of the time before the war demonstrate that he was at one time an altogether different man from the miserable fighter who now portrays the novel. Bäumer is a caring and naive schoolboy; before the war, he adored his family and composed poetry. Witnessing the awfulness of the war and the tension it instigates, Bäumer, as different warriors, figures out how to separate his psyche from his sentiments, keeping his feelings under control with a specific end goal to save his rational soundness and survive. With his epigraph, Remarque immediately separates

By reading both “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Testament of Youth”, we learn that World War 1 had a tremendous effect, not only on the men in the trenches; but essentially on everyone; of all genders throughout Europe and the World. Vera Brittains, “Testament of Youth” tells the tale of her experiences working as a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurse) in many areas, however in chapters five and six, she is stationed in London. She describes, in vivid details the struggles of working as a nurse in London during the war. In Remarques’ novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” we follow the life of a soldier, Paul Baumer who essentially enlists in the Army and is later deployed to the western front. Baumer experiences the horrors of war in many ways, due to this; he undergoes severe physical and psychological stress and he feels as if he will never be able to recover and become an ordinary civilian.

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

Death is not the only thing to come out of war. Eric Remarque wanted to show us the facts about war and he did but he also showed us three things that happen in war with emotions. In this essay I will go over three things that come out of war other than death which is betrayal, horror, and friendship.

A soldier changes mentally and socially due to fighting in war. The soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front and Anthem for Doomed Youth learn that their enemies are very similar to them. Both Remarque and Owens emphasize that soldiers are the same and it is merely war that puts a blockade between the enemies. Remarque stresses that war separates soldiers despite having many similar personalities.

The book All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story about a group of young German men that volunteered their duty to the war. The main character Paul entered the war with his lifelong friends. The young comrades were in their twenties and didn’t have a lot of life experiences. The story shows what the young men go through while in the war. You learn just how close Paul is to his friends. The book also shows what Paul goes through as each one of his friends are taken down by the war. The war unquestionably impacts Paul psychologically. Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front uses a lot of literary devices to illustrate what soldiers go through while at war. He does a good job showing the psychological impact on Paul during

Soldiers on the front constantly endured death and the fear of being killed, but the one thing that scared men more than dying was going back home. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque wanted to tell of a generation of men that may have escaped bombs and bullets, but were still defeated by the brutality of the war. Even when men recovered from wounds, they could never recover from the impact war had on their minds. Remarque fulfilled the purpose he set for his book. Through his words he showed the depth of how the war mentally and physically scarred the men.

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,