Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

All quiet On the Western Front, a book written by Erich Maria Remarque tells of the harrowing experiences of the First World War as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier. I think that this novel is a classic anti-war novel that provides an extremely realistic portrayal of war. The novel focuses on a group of German soldier and follows their experiences.

“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.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictional war novel written by Erich Maria Remarque which follows the main character Paul Baumer, a German solider in World War I. Paul, the nineteen year old protagonist, narrates the novel as he and his classmates fight on the German and French front. The young men volunteer to join the German army after being persuaded by the nationalist words of their teacher, Kantorek. After only fighting for two weeks, eighty men remain in the company of the once one hundred and fifty men. Paul, Kropp, and Muller then go to visit Kemmerich, a friend of theirs from school, in the hospital. He was wounded in combat resulting in the amputating of his leg. Seeing that Kemmerich is going to die and no longer needs the new boots that he has, Muller asks to have them but Kemmerich refuses. When Paul later goes back to the hospital, Kemmerich dies and Paul takes his boots to Muller.

focusing on the life of the soldiers.The novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque, tells the story of the German soldiers in world war I. This novel illustrates the destructions of a war and the real effects of a war on a soldier’s live while finding villains and heroes amongst the soldiers. The soldiers are also shown to be normal human beings just like anyone else in the world. Villainous and heroic characteristics exists in or outside of a war, in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the villains and heroes are judged by a humanity scale

All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque is a narrative describing World War I from a German soldier 's perspective. The story is narrated by Paul Baümer and predominantly revolves around the experiences of him and his comrades Kemmerich, Katczinsky, Kropp, Müller, and Leer. The novel begins with Paul Baümer and his friends in a cheerful mood as extra rations are being allocated to them due to the missing soldiers. During this event, Baümer introduces and describes the various personalities of his friends and his connection to them. Eventually, Baümer reflects back to the time how he and his friends had been coaxed into joining the war by their, patriotic school teacher, Kantorek only to later find out that they 've been lied to and the war isn 't even comparable to of what they 've been told. Instead, Paul Baümer and his school friends find themselves entrenched in the middle of bloody and what appears to be a pointless war.

An ancient Chinese proverb states “One cannot know peace without knowing war” (Herzberg). In a time where all that plagues many nations was war, it was inevitable that a time of peace needed to follow or at least the sober idea of it. The proverb was created to validate wars and later turned into a way to approach life’s troubles. Being within an individual or on a global scale, war and peace are connected. They exist coherently but never together; they are the cause and effects of each other. One follows the other yet both are needed in order to understand the other one. This relationship between war and peace is developed in the Erich Maria Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. While the first major world war is the background

Erich Remarque was born on July 22, 1898, in Osnabrück, Germany, and he was the only son among Peter Franz Remark and Anna Maria Remark’s three children. During Remarque’s childhood, his family had to move at least eleven times due to the lack of money that they had. For an outlet, Remarque began writing somewhere between the age of sixteen or seventeen. Shortly after he began writing, he started college at the University of Münster, where he was planning on majoring in education to become an elementary school teacher. During his studies, he was drafted into the

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.

There is no doubt that when war occurs, every single human being is affected by it even if it is just a little. In the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by Erich Maria Remarque, a group of teenage men, who also appear to by classmates, are in the German army of World War I because they have chosen to leave their adolescence at home and school for grown up work at the army. Throughout this fictional novel, they face many challenges that result in them not seeing each other ever again because of death. War affects individuals by leaving behind necessities such as education or jobs, not being able to watch over others such as their health, and injuries that soldiers receive while they are at war.

The young men at the front had a distant relationship that seemed to grow as the war went on. The men that fought at the front became alienated through all of the gruesome scenes they encountered and the problems they faced daily. After just two weeks of battle only half of the men that went to battle with Paul remained at the battle front. Paul along with all of the other soldiers at the front had to see their “brothers” shot and killed or wounded while fighting right by their side. Paul

Using defense mechanisms to cope with the gratuitous struggle of war was definitely insufficient, especially when the bloodbath of the young soldiers’ loved ones overpowers a simple device like daydreaming. Sometimes, all they needed was a breath of fresh air and different scenery to ease into; “These are wonderfully care-free hours. Over us is the blue sky. On the horizon float the bright, yellow, sunlit observation-balloons, and the many little white clouds of the anti-aircraft shells… We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder; bumblebees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.”; (Remarque 9). Generally, the creative imagery and the depictions of nature were spread largely throughout the war novel, and specifically from this moment in time, it was clearly illustrated. Paul and his fellow comrades found themselves in a seemingly protected paradise and were able to ease in with the tranquility of the “wonderfully care-free hours.” They were detached from both the physically inhumane and mentally deteriorating workings of war. After all the bloodshed and brutality, there was no doubt in mind that the soldiers would not presentably steal the opportunity in being able to be surrounded once again with such thriving life.

Emotion and reaction is part of human nature; it is absolutely natural for one to be traumatized by the harming and killing of fellow comrades. War is still with horrific events that cause soldiers to this day to have post-traumatic stress disorder. Erich Remarque exhibits a soldier’s perception of how the value of Life can change when put on the front. German soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front face abysmal conditions. They partake in extremely violent tasks in order to defend themselves.

Detering makes an attempt at desertion but is caught and court-martialed. Kat is killed by while being carried to safety by Paul. By the fall of 1918, Paul is all that is left of his group of friends. The remaining soldiers discuss the topic of looming German surrender and that peace that will follow. Paul suffers from being poisoned from a chemical attack and is given a short leave. Paul thinks about how he can not go back to the normal world, as all he knows now is war. In October 1918, on a day with almost no fighting, Paul dies. The army report for that day reports: “All quiet on the Western Front.” Paul’s corpse seems to show an expression of satisfaction that the end has finally come for

Over 60 million people dead, World War I took the lives of many, and destroyed hundreds of families. Many people wonder if they died a gruesome death, or died heroically; however, very few who survived the war were able to tell their experiences that occurred. One of the few was a German author, E.M. Remarque, who wrote about the life changing events in the war. The novel was called All Quiet on the Western Front and it exhibits the true horrors of war. Many people thought war was patriotic and heroic, which is exactly what the leaders wanted people to think. If more people believe war is heroic, then more are likely to join. Throughout the novel the true horrors are shown, even the leaders were shocked that someone had spoken the truth.

attempted many jobs, a journalist, a teacher, a librarian and of course, a writer. All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1929 and translated into twelve different languages and later made into a movie. The novel was a colossal success. Not only did it give civilians a real account of the dehumanizing effects of the war but it gave a voice to those solider’s that had their own taken from them. During the war, there was little to no way that the families of the men fighting would know what the war was like. There was no way of knowing the sheer horror of what happened to the soldiers. At the time, there was a misconception about the war, a romanticism that formed. From this romanticism, a certain false patriotism rose. Young men were encouraged to leave school and join the war for their country. The idea of “fighting for the fatherland” was used as an incentive to join the fight. After the Nazi’s rose to power, Remarque’s novel was deemed “unpatriotic” and banned by the Nazis. Remarque used his personal experience of fighting in the war to write All Quiet on the Western Front. A novel that was so necessary, so vital that soldiers from around the word identified with the characters.