A Comparison Of All Quiet On The Western Front

In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, soldiers at the front have a better idea than civilians of the true nature of war because they have experienced the war while civilians have only read about it or listened to government propaganda. Remarque is trying to tell us that only those who experience the war can understand how awful war truly is.

Written by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front is the tale of a young man by the name of Paul. Paul who is nineteen years old gathers several of his friends from school and together they voluntarily join the army fighting for the Axis alliance. Before they are sent off into actual battle, they are faced with the brutal training camp. Along with this they face the cruelty of the life of a soldier. This made them question the reason for which a soldier fights. They are told that they fight because they must be nationalists and must therefore be patriotic. But they began to understand that these are just clichés and are used to brainwash soldiers. Soon after they graduate they are sent into the fray of war. The premature idea of war being glorious and honourable is destroyed when they step into the gruesome actuality of war. They are forced to live in constant fear for their life. Kemmerich, a friend of Paul, gets injured and contracts gangrene. From this his leg is amputated to stop the infection from spreading. Sadly, the operation was done too late and Kemmerich is declared to be slowly dying. Paul and his friend visit Kemmerich is slowly dying, and Müller, another former classmate, overlooks Kemmerich’s horrible state and says that he wants Kemmerich’s boots for himself. Accustomed to life at war, Paul doesn’t consider Müller insensitive. Paul understands that Muller knows Kemmerich will no longer use his boots

Earlier in the book, as Paul is scrambling for his life, he dives into a hole to try and survive the shells, or bombs, falling all around him. Going into war, dead soldiers littering the fields are expected as Paul experiences hands on, ¨...my fingers grasp a sleeve, an arm. A wounded man? I yell to him--no answer--a dead man.¨ (67). Tragedies in the battlefield is as common as flowers growing in a meadow when in war.

World War I was one of the most destructive wars in recorded Human History and it was only 100 years ago. The book, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque proves that war is very destructive. The people we are looking at are Paul Baumer, Albert Kropp, and Detering. These people are brainwashed and are told that they are the “iron youth” and are coerced to join the army during World War I. Then they go into the war and see that war is not glorious, but see an ugly reality that is war. War is very destructive of physical places, emotionally, and can cause a loss of a generation, and this book shows this very well.

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.

The book, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque can be identified with many themes. Whether the theme is loyalty to friends, the unbelievable suffering at the hands of other human beings, or the beauty of nature in contrast to the horrors of war, none of those are as fitting as the theme: betrayal by adults. The manipulation performed by a trusted schoolmaster, the awful treatment done by someone who is called a leader, and parents going along with what society thinks is right versus what their sons want, all are important factors that explain why betrayal by adults is the central idea of this story.

The greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel that depicted the hardships of a group of teenagers who enlisted in the German Army during World War 1. Enlisting right out of high school forced the teens to experience things they had never thought of. From the life of a soilder on the front line to troubles with home life, war had managed to once again destroy a group of teenagers.

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.

As scientific innovations and developments push the frontier of our technological capabilities, the threat of using them for evil is an all too present reality. While at the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy said, "Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.". In his groundbreaking book, All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich M. Remarque seeks to spread this pacifistic message and anti-war sentiment, after the devastation brought by the First World War (Remarque 1982). As the biggest, most technological advanced and deadliest war of its time, this new breed of warfare has left ripples all across the fabric of the global society (Rowley 2003). Remarque wanted to use this book to recreate the horrors of this war in a fictional, yet ghastly tale. In his own words, he wishes All Quiet On The Western Front "to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure..." (Remarque 1982). Having served personally on the German front lines during the First World War, Remarque translates this firsthand experience of the war into this book (Gale 2003). He wanted to pay homage to his fallen comrades of his generation, saying "It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who were destroyed by the war" (Remarque 1982). Remarque weaves a tale that gives a new, horrifying, and shocking account of the trauma that soldiers face on a daily basis while on the front (Gale 2003). He uses this, and his own experiences from, and after, fighting in

The rise of World War I caused millions of casualties and was yet another demonstration of how supposedly civilized nations could be led into a chaotic war of power over lands and people. Since the beginning of civilization, war has been the way of the world. However, with major advances in technology, this idea of war has since become mechanized and deadlier. There is no doubt that the powerful men who lead wars often don’t care to think of nitty gritty of war, to them, rather, it’s a matter of power and legacy. In Remarque’s novel, the particular story of Paul and his comrades is a perfect example of how a generation can be used and manipulated to drive the agenda of power- hungry men. Through Remarque’s own personal experience and unparalleled writing ability, this novel presents many first-hand experiences into the living conditions of soldiers and peoples.

1. Paul Baumer and his friends, as German soldiers in World War I, collectively fight any who oppose the German army. However, Corporal Himmelstoss is an enemy whose transgressions are taken far more personally by Paul and his friends. Himmelstoss often torments Paul and his comrades for the sake of doing so, as he is power-driven and tries to exert control over others whenever he can. It is never stated that the soldiers hate or even dislike the enemies that they fight daily on the battlefield; yet they disfavor Himmelstoss openly. In addition, they all begin to harbor distaste for their former teacher, Kantorek, for encouraging them to join the army. All of the men also struggle against the knowledge that

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.

Mahatma Gandhi, a renowned political and spiritual leader, once said that, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.” Presume you see two men in a heated argument and one of them is about to attack the other, you take a rock and throw it at him and knock him out. On one hand it is a good thing that you prevented the attack but on the other hand you used violence yourself, and there is no doubt that you would not hesitate to use it again. The good that came from the violence that you used lasted for a short time, but the punishment that you get for doing this lasts for a long time. Imperialism of rivalries and nationalism were two of the main reasons that most

“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.

Through out this book the author shows that war is not about heroism and fighting nobly for your country, war is a terrible thing. Paul and his friends are on the frontline in the shelters for days and the pressure gets to the men as Paul says here. "The recruit who had the fit earlier is raving again and two more have joined in. One breaks away and runs for it." This shows that the frontline, added by lack of food, has driven the young recruits mad and so much so that one recruit runs away out into the battle field with inevitable consequence of death. Paul describes the front line in many ways to show the reader and give the reader a good picture of what the frontline is like for a soldier, as Paul expresses here." The front is a cage and you have to wait nervously in it for whatever happens to you", and Paul also says. "I can be squashed flat in a bomb-proof dugout, and I can survive ten hours in the pen under heavy barrage without a scratch." This shows the reader that it is very unpredictable on the frontline and that a soldier owes his life only to lucky chances that they have not yet been killed.