All Quiet on the Western Front

923 Words2 Pages

All Quiet on the Western Front

The book, All Quiet on the Western Front, was a very shocking book because it shows the reader what World War I was like from a German soldier, Paul Baumer’s, point of view. The author, Erich Maria Remarque, is trying to get across to the reader that war is not a fun game. War is serious. If a soldier is in a battle, he is going to see some horrible sights. The author states that the battles that the soldiers faced were terrible.

Paul Baumer had very close school friends. His teacher Heir Kantorek convinced Paul and his fellow classmates to go down and sign up for the military. They went off to boot camp then right after they graduated boot camp, they were immediately sent to the front lines. Whenever a battle would come up, often some of the soldiers would die. Perhaps the authors purpose was to show if young people today want to go up to the recruiter’s office, they should think about what they are doing before they sign up. A smart person before going and signing up he would think about it first and talk it over with a person who has been in a war and knows what its like to be in a war.

Williams 2

Paul and his fellow brothers in arms who are throughout the book did not go and talk to somebody who has been in a war before they enlisted. Instead they listened to a foolish teacher saying how glorious it would be to fight for Germany.

The recruits who went to boot camp were put through extremely hard drills by a former postman, Himmelstoss, who had became their drill instructor. Since the drill instructor was so hard on the new recruits, their last day of boot camp, they threw a bed-cover over Himmelstoss’s head and took turns beating him in the buttocks. Then they did some other ...

... middle of paper ...

...illiams 4

was the senior man there and those new soldiers were saying that to me I would be very angry at them because first they don’t know what they are talking about and second they probably haven’t set foot out there on the battlefield where all the bullets and big explosions are happening. I’m sure that they would feel the same if the new soldiers were senior soldiers and newer soldiers came to the battlefield and said that. At the very end of the book the character says he is the last of seven platoon members from his class. It is very strange that the whole book is in first person but on page 248 it suddenly changes from first person to third person. Paul Baumer died in October of 1918. Let’s have a moment of silence.

Williams 5

Bibliography

Maria, Remarque, Erich. All Quiet on the Western Front. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975.

Open Document