All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque: The Brutality of War on Soldiers

Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel All Quiet on the Western Front is based on World War I; it portrays themes involving suffering, comradeship, chance and dehumanization. The novel is narrated by Paul, a young soldier in the German military, who fights on the western front during The Great War. Like many German soldiers, Paul and his fellow friends join the war after listening to the patriotic language of the older generation and particularly Kantorek, a high school history teacher. After being exposed to unbelievable scenes on the front, Paul and his fellow friends realize that war is not as glorifying and heroic as the older generation has made it sound. Paul and his co-soldiers continuously see horrors of war leading them to become hardened, robot-like objects with one goal: the will to survive.
As war wages on, the German youth continuously fight forces beyond their control leading the young soldiers to dehumanization. Remarque indicates that patriotism is a thought of the past as the young newcomers are exposed to the authenticity of trench warfare. In the beginning of the novel the German recruits experience some inhumane training in the trenches running along the Rhineland, and thus quickly learn that surviving or dying has hardly anything to do with their toughness (Napierkowski 6). This realization materializes as the young Germans start fighting fresh, well-equipped Allies troops. Not only are the Allies troops fresh and well-equipped, but they outnumber the German troops in quantity and devastating equipment. The Allies list of destructive equipment includes: tanks, airplanes, poison gas, bombs and machine guns. The Allies technology only make survival for the German troops only more difficult as the trenches offer ...

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...rman company encounters impoverished conditions, only further adding to their pain. As a result of battling unmanageable forces and dealing with shoddy trenches, the young German armed forces are no longer able to see the real world.

Works Cited

Barker, Christine R., R.W. Last, and Terry O' Neil. "The Structure of All Quiet Helps Carry Out the Theme of Alienation." 1979. Readings on All Quiet on the Western Front. San Diego: Greenhaven,Inc, 1999. 75-84. Print.
Remarque, Erich Maria, and A. W. Wheen. All Quiet on the Western Front. Boston: Little, Brown, 1929. Print.
Spielvogal, Jackson J. "The Beginning of the Twentieth-Century Crisis:War and Revolution." Western Civulization since 1300. Eighth ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2006. 784-85. Print.
"Themes." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie R. Napierkowski. Vol. 4. Detriot: Gale, 1998. 6-7. Print.