Commentary on All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque

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All Quiet On the Western Front is a war story that features a young man who is serving in World War 1. It describes what he had witnessed during his portion of time spent there, and what happened around him. The author’s purpose in writing this book is to notify the readers of the hardships and miseries of World War 1. He attempts to inform the readers of what the lives of the men serving as soldiers during the war was like during that time. Erich Remarque, the author, gives a great deal of details and stories to style the sufferings and miseries of the way. He does a great job at getting his point across to enlighten the readers about it. The historical context of this book is World War 1 in Germany. Many people describe the book as “The Greatest War Novel of All Time”, so he did a great job describing the war. The book starts out by talking about how they all went to school together. He introduces all of the characters and describes what they all are like. The characters in this book learn to deal with the cold nights and their growling stomachs. Some of the soldiers would sneak out and get hay to cover up with during the night. (Page 40) During this time in their lives they didn’t think twice about asking a dying person for their things, if they could be useful to them. Kat’s friend, Kemmerich, had his leg amputated and died later on, but at one time when Kat and Kropp went to visit him another man, Muller asked for his boots. Kemmerich didn’t know his leg was amputated or that he was dying, so he didn’t want to give them up. Right before he died, he told Kat to take the boots and give them to Muller (Page 28). People weren’t very sympathetic during this time, if they needed something they weren’t afraid to ask for it. T... ... middle of paper ... ...report on the western front”. After Remarque wrote more books about the war time he wrote about war because he was a soldier at one time, so he knew what soldiers went through and could speak from experience. At first he couldn’t find anyone to publish it for him, but he finally found a publisher and published it. Erich Remarque lived from 1898-1970 and he was a soldier in World War 1. He was wounded five times and the last one was severe. This book made him famous and rich by the age of 33. He knew how to describe the war, so people reading it could imagine the horrors he seen. He didn’t go into great detail about some of the things he wrote about, because I’m sure it was hard for him to talk about it. This book was his most famous writing and he’s still famous for it today. This book did change his life a lot and he moved to America right before he died in 1970.

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