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

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.

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

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.

The global conflict that arose in the beginning of the 20th century, World War I, became one of the darkest events that transpired in human history. The First World War or known by many as the Great War, was seen by many as horrendous and appalling and it inspired many writers and painters to document the experience. One of those soured by the war effort was novelist Erich Maria Remarque, and his novel All Quiet on the Western Front captured his anti-war position on the conflict. His novel details the life of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier who fights on the front lines with his fellow young comrades and explains the hardships of fighting in a war he no longer understands. Remarque describes the challenges that the men face, from the trench warfare to the older generation not understanding what these men go through for just a small piece of land. Throughout the entire novel, the themes may change of significance from chapter to chapter but overall Remarque maintains an anti-war theme. Overall, Remarque wrote this book to show how truly horrendous this war was, provide a real life view of the war contrasting what the average German believed, and the average reader would lose a novel that told the story of a generation lost to war.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

“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

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.

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

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.

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.