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

In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses metaphors to help the reader better understand the mindset and hardships of a soldier. Earlier in the book, Remarque talks of the soldier’s unexplainable longing to be a part of the war. He compares the front to “a mysterious whirlpool” and himself to the still water just outside of it (Remarque 55). Although he is far from the center, he is still “slowly, irresistibly, inescapably” sucked into combat. Remarque also illustrates the horrors of war and the mental obstacles a soldier must go through. The soldiers are “little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls”, meaning the war has made their minds fragile and prone to many dangers. Their tragic experiences makes their flame “flicker and sometimes

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.

Remarque uses imagery to foreshadow the coming of massive death and also the death of Paul. On the way to the front the soldiers see “at least a hundred” coffins, which the soldiers know are for them, not the enemies. The readers are able to picture the “yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins” leaning against the school through the visual imagery. Remarque uses this imagery to foreshadow the coming attack and the death of many soldiers. Remarque also uses the pre-ready coffins to show the expendability of the soldiers; the german leaders were already planning on the soldiers dying. The “brand-new coffins” were used to foreshadow the new recruits in particular dying, because they were not ready to be sent out to the front. The main foreshadowing

Erich Maria Remarque could not have known just how influential his fictitious take on the German perspective of World War I would be when he first published All Quiet on the Western Front. Almost one hundred years later, the book has sold over 30 million copies and three movies have been released. Many historians credit the renowned success of the novel to its exemplary depiction of the experience of WWI from a German soldier’s perspective. A large part of what makes this novel feel so real is Remarque’s expert use of figurative language. Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque uses irony, metaphors, and motifs to detail the mentality of the German soldiers and invest the reader in an understanding of the horrid conditions and experiences

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

The act of war is something that should not be done for obvious reasons. Yet for centuries mankind has fought over everything and anything. Often it is idolized and great war stories are told throughout the ages, yet the Story All quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque takes a different view. He looks closely at the extreme physical and mental stress it had on the soldiers. Although the story revolves around one german soldier, many on both sides experienced very similar conditions and psychological stress. Because of such profound information, at the original release of the book, the Nazi officials banned the book to prevent their propaganda from being distorted with the truth. All quiet on the Western Front not only shed truth into the lives of civilians, it educated the civilians with the physical and mental stress war had on human beings.

The style of writing of an author can tremendously impact the meaning and purpose of their pieces of literature. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author’s style of writing has an extensive impact on how readers perceive the story. Remarque was a soldier during World War I, providing him with first hand experience on the effects of war. These past experiences allow him bring the novel alive using his memories. Erich Maria Remarque’s style of writing has a colossal effect on the novel because of the level of detail he uses when describing scenes and moments of action.

Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front has a central theme of the harsh realities of war and a general negative attitude toward the subject. This attitude is synonymous of other war poems such as Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen and War Is Kind by Stephen Crane; however, the attitudes are revealed differently in all three pieces through each respective author’s use of diction, imagery, and tone.

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.

In the month of January 1929, one of the greatest war novels of all time was written; All Quiet on the Western Front. This novel was written in Germany by a veteran of the brutal first World War, and was written in hope of communicating his message of how millions of fearless men lost everything in this demoralizing and treacherous war. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the author Erich Maria Remarque uses juxtaposition and situational irony to promote the idea of how the adversities faced by the brave soldiers had a direct impact on their mental health and permanently affected their lives. Through the use of juxtaposition, Remarque argues on how the war was able to completely destroy the soldiers’ emotions and was later able to

In 2017 alone there were more than 310 mass shootings in America. The amount of shootings there are in a year is agonizing. These shootings shows how inhumane people can really be. Man’s inhumanity can lead to disturbing things. Man’s inhumanity can sometimes lead to rebellion or society fighting back.

All Quiet on the Western Front uses symbolism, or the use of symbols to show different, connoted ideas, to stage a subtle, overarching theme. Depicting the frank and irrefutable callousness of trench warfare for the Germans in World War I, this novel, at first glimpse, seems to have a sole, fixated goal to enlighten the reader about war’s fatal paradox. Yet, it is within this theme that author Erich Maria Remarque is able to exemplify this powerful message with the simple act of merely passing boots from soldier to soldier.

     “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

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