Soldiers Fighting for their Country in Enrich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front Book Review

The Courage and Strength in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria 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

It’s no surprise that soldiers will more-than-likely never come home the same. Those who have not served do not often think of the torment and negative consequences that the soldiers who make it out of war face. Erich Remarque was someone who was able to take the torment that he faced after his experience in World War I and shed light on the brutality of war. Remarque was able to illustrate the psychological problems that was experienced by men in battle with his best-selling novel All Quiet on the Western Front (Hunt). The symbolism used in the classic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front is significant not only for showing citizens the negative attributes of war, but also the mental, physical, and emotional impact that the vicious war had on the soldiers.

This essay will consider the different effects created by Erich Maria Remarque in his novel All Quiet on the Western Front. As a writer, Remarque unknowingly left his novel open to readers with completely different perspectives, and to various forms of criticism. This undoubtedly meant that every single reader had been affected by the novel in many different ways which unfortunately for Remarque may have been an effect that he never intended. This essay is divided into 5 main sections. Firstly it will address any of the intentions Remarque could have possibly wanted to propose through his novel, and closely examine the purposes and motives behind All quiet on the Western Front. It will then go on to analyse Remarque’s use of language in various extracts of the novel. Then the content is analysed in two parts; the third part is a brief insight into one of the key themes of the novel, and the fourth part highlights the effects Remarque causes. Finally, some conclusions will be drawn as to whether or Remarque may have intended to achieve a certain effect in his novel, and as to whether or not I personally agree with the comment that through his shaping of language and content, Remarque may have achieved an effect he might not have intended.

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.

“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front” (Remarque 296). Paul Baumer, the narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front, enlisted into the German army at a young age of nineteen with a group of friends from school. Kantorek, Paul’s teacher, “gave us long lectures until the whole of our class went, under his shepherding, to the District Commandant and volunteered” (Remarque 11). After Paul and his friends underwent the ten weeks of horrific training, under the control of brutal Corporal Himmelstoss, they found out that everything Kantorek had told them about the war being illustrious was inaccurate. Paul and his fellow combatants experienced the war to be an alienating event that led the young men to feel alone because of the relationships between the young men at the front, the problems Paul faced when returning home, and the prewar and wartime civilian society.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque that takes place in World War I. This novel is about an eighteen-year-old German boy that enlists with his classmates to the war. All of the boys that enlisted are very excited but they have no idea what war is really like. Throughout the years of fighting, Paul realizes that war is his life. He never really had a life after school so once the war is over he will have nothing to go back to. Paul thinks that war is horrible but that is all he has. During this novel, Paul experiences lots of brutal deaths. He watches his friends die and he can't do anything about it. He also sees young men risking their lives for their country. In this essay, I will go over the brutality of war using similes and personification quotes from All Quiet on the Western Front.

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.

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.

There are plenty of factors that makes Erich Maria Remarque book, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front universal. Factors such as, the brotherhood between the guys, loss of youth/innocence, the horror of war, denial of the soldiers, and Kemmerich’s boots. I will discuss three of these universal themes that stood out the most to me throughout the book. I will focus on the brutality of war, the denial to talk about their experiences outside of the war zone and on Kemmerich’s boots and the role it played in this novel.

Through the use of symbolism, setting, and character, Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front demonstrates the psychological effects war has on the soldiers.

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.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is considered a classic novel by many. The antiwar book is taught and read throughout the world, and it sheds light on the traumas that World War 1 brought. It shows that war can change a person physically​, mentally, and emotionally. The soldiers of the first World War became the Lost Generation by experiencing the horrors they felt and saw. In the novel, Paul becomes lost in all of these ways due to the monstrosities of war.

As Paul and his peers mature in the strict wartime regime, they realise the lengths of change that the war has forced upon them. Remarque’s use of first person narration helps present a realistic interpretation that contrasted with society’s influenced perceptions of honour and war: “’There’s going to be a show’. Perhaps it is our innermost and most secret life that gives a shudder, and then prepares to defend itself” (Remarque, p.38). As a result, an implied sense of authenticity is established to create an emotional directness and thus expands on the specific voice and world of the textual community. This idea is reinforced when Paul returns back to his hometown, where he recognises the futility and weakness of emotions and innocence during a time of societal struggle and regrets returning home. Remarque also highlights the emotional and psychological toll of war through the metaphoric comparison of soldiers to animals: “We have turned into dangerous animals. We are not fighting, we are defending ourselves from annihilation.” (Remarque, p.79) This underlines the necessity of implementing a reliance on animal instinct for survival and instigates a distinguishable dehumanisation of soldiers. All Quiet on the Western Front explores the intricate interplay between

All Quiet on the Western Front is a short book, but remarkably deep. More than 50 years after its jolting prose, haunting poetry, and powerful truths slashed their way into the consciousness of a worldwide readership, All Quiet still stands at the forefront of a host of novels on that most tragic recurrence in the history of human experience: war. All the aspects of trench warfare are present—excitement, boredom, horror, hunger, fear, dirt, alienation, imminent death, futility, to name a few. All Quiet has a pervasive sense of uselessness, an initially unvoiced but later fully expressed question of 'Just what is this war about, and why am I being put on the line for it?' The answer is, of course, nothing, and if All Quiet has but one overriding message, it is that war is awful, and young people ought not to fight. All Quiet is not a book which glorifies the German war effort, or portrays soldiers as heroes. In Remarque's own words, it is “an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war—even those of it who survived the shelling.” As such, it is brutal and confronting, but in the best possible way. Anti-war fiction has seldom been this effective, or this memorable for that matter.