Erich Maria Remarque’s fictional book, All quiet on the Western Front, is based on true events of World War I (WWI), which took place from 1914-1918. His book was published in 1929, eleven years after the war ended. Remarque was enlisted in the war as a German soldier by the age of eighteen years old, and he was transferred to the western front. During His time in the war, he was injured by debris of a bomb, and then was in the Germany Army hospital for the remainder of the war. In this way, the novel acts as a secondary source. Although it is fiction, it refers to events that took place and also speaks from personal experience. Throughout this story, Remarque expresses a theme about the horrors of war. His view on what the war entailed was The ‘war to end all wars,’ destroyed the people that witnessed it and lived to remember it. These individuals became known as the “lost generation,” meaning it left them physically and psychologically unable to readjust. It is seen for example when the main character, Paul, returns home on leave and experienced “a terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in [him]. [He] cannot find [his] way back, [he is] shut out though [he] entreats earnestly and put forth all [his] strength” (Remarque 152). A lot of these men, who survived, most likely dealt with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after the war was over. Maybe this is something that the author, Remarque, dealt with after returning from the battle. He writes of a scene in the novel where Paul is in a trench with another man and ends up taking his life. Paul feels awful, and waited until this man took his last breath, and he looked to see if this man had a family. When he finds out this man had a wife and child, he promises to write them and take care of them (125-126). However, Paul and none of his friends survived the war. That tells the reader something about how possibly the men felt after returning home, since the author himself didn’t die, but maybe he felt like he should have. WWI had a great effect on society as well. During the war all the young men were off to fight; so, the number of women in the workforce rose. This could have played an effect on women’s traditional role changing in the German economy. The war also created more jobs, but the amount of money spent on it broke Germany financially. Even so, Germany being one of the main nations defeated, their punishment was that they were given a greater amount of debt that they had to repay to help fix the damages caused by the war. Another aspect as an
Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different as described here. "As if something is inside us, in our blood, has been switched on." The front makes Paul more aware and switched on as if his senses and reactions are sharpened. I think Paul and his friends are frightened when they are near the front line. After they wire the fences and they are heading to the barracks their group start to be fired at by the enemy. They manage to get through the shelling unscathed but they hear a horse that has been shot. The horse makes a terrible noise of anguish and is in terrible pain and it has been shot as the author describes here. "The belly of one of the horses has been ripped open and it guts are trailing out." This shows that there are not just human casualties of war; the innocent lives of animals can be affected as much as humans who fight in wars. Detering-one soldier in Pauls group-says." It is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war." I agree with Detering, as animals had no choice about going to war. On the way back to the trucks that would take them back to the barracks Paul Baumers company are hit again by heavy shelling and they have to take cover in a military graveyard. The shells blow huge holes in the graveyard and create large...
...machinery – such as machine guns, tanks, and aeroplanes – seems to have made the biggest impact. On the other hand, psychological damage – such as feeling of abandonment, disconnectedness, and disillusionment – seemed to be at the crux of Remarque’s experience. Nevertheless, both emphasize the sheer amount of carnage and violence that human race has never seen before. As such, they both highlight the worthlessness of human life, which is caused by the technological advancement in the modern European society. In studying these two texts, one must be able to carefully distinguish the subtleties of the authors’ lessons as well as be able to perceive the bigger picture in which the story is set. Nevertheless, it is paramount to understand how these lessons are derived from their experiences and to comprehend the deeper meaning of their lessons set in historical context.
Because the men that return have lost their substance of life they feel disconnected to the people back home. This is shown in All Quiet on the Western Front when Paul returns to his hometown on leave and is met by unbearable war-enthusiasts, patriots, his oblivious parents and Kemmerich’s distraught mother – he can’t relate to any of them. His experiences distance him from his past, this is poignantly displayed when Paul states “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear”.
Everyone knows what war is. It's a nation taking all of its men, resources, weapons and most of its money and bearing all malignantly towards another nation. War is about death, destruction, disease, loss, pain, suffering and hate. I often think to myself why grown and intelligent individuals cannot resolve matters any better than to take up arms and crawl around, wrestle and fight like animals. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque puts all of these aspects of war into a vivid story which tells the horrors of World War 1 through a soldier's eyes. The idea that he conveys most throughout this book is the idea of destruction, the destruction of bodies, minds and innocence.
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, is a classic anti-war novel about the personal struggles and experiences encountered by a group of young German soldiers as they fight to survive the horrors of World War One. Remarque demonstrates, through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier, how the war destroyed an entire generation of men by making them incapable of reintegrating into society because they could no longer relate to older generations, only to fellow soldiers.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictitious novel written by Erich Remarque that speculates the adventures and life of World War I German soldier Paul Bäumer. Paul is a young man of nineteen who joins the army voluntarily with his friends because they believe being in the military is very honorable and patriotic. However, after experiencing brutal and horrific training, him and his friends realize that their ideas of what nationalism and patriotism are are simply false. Over the course of multiple battles and confrontations with the French military, many men of Paul’s company are killed in combat. Towards the end of the novel, Paul and his group of friends are given what seems an easy task of guarding a supply depot from fighting for three
The new technological advances of weapons add to the cruelty and tragedy of World War 1. This ultimately is why Remarque focuses on the losses suffered by Paul and his fellow soldiers. In addition, the observations made by Remarque are not unique to war and are exemplified by the struggles soldiers, like Paul, face physically and
When soldiers think about commoners after a traumatic experience, they often get frustrated that no one will ever understand their plight. Siegfried Sassoon portrays this in “Suicide in the Trenches” by showing anger at the happiness of other people. Saying “You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye / Who cheer when soldier lads march by, / Sneak home and pray you’ll never know / The hell where youth and laughter go.” (Sassoon 9-12), he effectively pours his unsolvable frustrations onto other people although they are not to blame. The men he is describing are people not only who don’t care, but never had the opportunity to care because they never thought about putting themselves in the same position as these soldiers. Remarque portrays the same message, but in a different tone as he brings it to a sad end because he has no energy to fuel any more anger. He is trying to reason with himself, but then thinks aloud “And men will not understand us-for the generation that grew up before us, though it has passed these years with us already had a home…, and the war will be forgotten” (Remarque 294). The men who may be ‘remembered for their service’ will merely be remembered within their family as another human being, but not a person of strong willpower. Along with the soldier, the war itself will be forgotten
Paul and his company were once aspiring youth just graduating school thinking about having a wonderful life. Sometimes things don’t always play out the way you want. The effects of war on a soldier is another big theme in the novel. Paul describes how they have changed and how death doesn’t affect them anymore. “We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defen...
World War I, also known as “The Great War”, was a global war that revolved mainly around Europe. It took place from 1914 to 1918. This was a very brutal war that caused many casualties. The soldiers who survived experienced severe trauma and mental discomfort. This trauma was a direct result of the violence and agony they experienced during the war. Motivation for this war was the idea of nationalism and the pride in one’s country. This war was the cause of disillusionment among many of the soldiers that were involved in it.
The details used make one think of how bad the war must be and how it changes one's perception of war. Another example Remarque uses to show the brutality of war is through the imagery of sound. In chapter four Paul talks about the paranoia everyone gets when they hear the loud death cries of the wounded horses at the front: "We can bear almost anything. But now the sweat breaks out on us. We must get up and run no matter where, but where these cries can no longer be heard" (Remarque 63-64).
The war scarred the soldiers permanently, if not physically then mentally. After the war the soldiers usually never recovered from the war. Two of the most common side affects of the war were shell shock and stir crazy. When suffering from shell shock a soldier’s brain doesn’t function properly and the man is a “vegetable”. This means the man is alive but he can’t do anything because he is in a state of shock because of the war. Stir crazy is a mental illness caused by the firing of so many bullets that when no bullets are heard by the victim he goes insane. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started. Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: “where’s Himmelstoss?” Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.” (P 131) Even the big men like Himmelstoss are scared to go fight. They too go through the mental illnesses like stir crazy and shell shock. “He is in a panic; he is new to it too.
Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war. This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”. War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through. The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.
Paul and his generation feel separated from the rest society. Paul feels as though “[he has] been crushed without knowing it” and “[does] not belong anymore, it is a foreign world” (168). Other men “talk to much for [him]. They have worries, aims, desires, that [he] cannot comprehend” (168). His generation of men who fought in the war is “pushed aside” (249) as unpleasant reminders of a war the civilian population would like to forget. After surviving such unspeakable experiences the soldiers feel separated from everyone. Paul says, “men will not understand us” (294). “The generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside” (294). After the war most soldiers “will be bewildered” (294) and “in the end [they] will fall into ruin” (294). The soldiers do not have concrete identities as the older generations do. “All the older men are linked up with their previous life” (19). Paul’s generation cannot even imagine any definite post-war plans. Their experiences are so shattering that they regard the prospect of functioning in a peacetime environment with vague anxiety. They have no experiences as adults that do not involve a day-to-day fight for survival and sanity. Paul has a “feeling if foreignness” and “cannot find [his] way back” (172).
The author's main theme centers not only on the loss of innocence experienced by Paul and his comrades, but the loss of an entire generation to the war. Paul may be a German, but he may just as easily be French, English, or American. The soldiers of all nations watched their co...