Intimate Relationship in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

900 Words2 Pages

"If I were asked what education should give, I would say it should offer breadth of view, ease of understanding, tolerance for others, and a background from which the mind can explore in any direction… Education should provide the tools for a widening and deepening of life, for increased appreciation of all one sees and experiences. It should equip a person to live life well, to understand what is happening about him, for to live life well one must live with awareness." This quote is from Louis L'amour’s autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. Out of the pieces of literature read during the English I course, the war novel All Quiet on the Western Front best exemplifies this standard of education. There are various qualities that the book teaches to readers, and they are in no way cliché. Through eyes of a German soldier, an uncommon choice in wartime material, the audience learns what truly occurs on the battlefield. All Quiet on the Western Front also explores the need for intimate relationships. The novel provides an excellent education because presents the horrors of war without bias, offers the alternate point of view of an important point in world history, and describes an increased appreciation for relationships between nature and humans during war.

Remarque vividly describes not only the gore that is present on the battlefield, but the emotional turmoil that wrecks the men in the trenches. Paul Baümer, the narrator, describes his inner thoughts throughout the work, as he would in a journal. His position towards the war gradually changes from anger to despair and depression. Early in the book, the soldiers lose trust in the generation before them, and channel this anger at their fathers and school teacher, Kantor...

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...alize how little is accomplished politically by mass bloodshed. All Quiet on the Western Front also pokes holes into the common stereotype of World War I and II, often leading modern society to the impression that all german soldiers were black hearted and pitted against the allied forces with every bone in their body. Remarque dissolves this with his blunt candor, especially in Paul’s few days with corpse of Gérard Duval the French Printer. Paul soon sees that the two were comrades and could have easily been brothers if it weren’t for the war and their governments. Erich Remarque’s brilliant novel is one that educates the mind of the atrocities of war, and what political leaders often try to hide from their people. The classic work of literature teaches one of the horrors of war from a non-standard point of view, and shows the intimacy of a soldier and nature.

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