The Horror of War

907 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Short note of war poetry

“Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it” (1 Peter 3:11). In the historical fiction novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque relates the life of a soldier struggling to do “seek peace” in the midst of a brutal, gruesome war. Remarque’s personal experience as a soldier in World War I validates the anti-war polemic he presents through the novel. The story juxtaposes the civilian’s misconstrued idea of war as a glorious, noble duty and the horror soldiers know it to be. It also addresses the problems encountered by a soldier trying to assimilate back into the life of a civilian because of the mindset he must adopt to survive in the war. Finally, Remarque questions the purpose of war and the civilian’s responsibility to participate in it. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front presents war—not at its best, nor at its worst, but at as it is, and therefore, most troubling.
The novel follows the life of Paul Bäumer, a young soldier in World War I. After joining the German army and experiencing the horror of the war first-hand, Bäumer struggles to reconcile the view of the war held by his friends and family at home with his personal experience of it. Before enlisting, Bäumer is “crammed full of vague ideas which gave … to the war … an ideal and almost romantic character” (25). He understands war to be glorious and desirable; however, these enthusiastic opinions are swept away after he witnesses a few of his comrades’ deaths. When Bäumer visits one of his friends, dying in a hospital, he is sorrowfully indignant, thinking, “There he lies now—but why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: ‘That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn’t want to die. Let hi...

... middle of paper ...

... desert, and if they stay but do not fight they will be killed in battle. “[Generals] become famous through war” (181), the soldiers finally conclude. Since they cannot think of anyone who desires the war, or anyone who it is of use to, even on the opposing side, they jestingly resort to the Kaiser and generals. According to their school books, “every full-grown emperor requires at least one war, otherwise he would not become famous” (181).
Remarque’s anti-war polemic rests on a few key themes: the juxtaposition of the idea that war is glorious and the horror it is in reality, the problems encountered by a soldier trying to assimilate back into the life of a civilian, and the unclear purpose of the war. The novel All Quiet on the Western Front presents war in disturbing reality, so that future generations may truly grasp the “horror of war” that Remarque experienced.

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Forgotten Soldier By Guy Sajer

    2456 Words  | 5 Pages

    Guy Sajer’s The Forgotten Soldier is a work notable not only for its vivid and uncompromising account of his experience as a member of the Wehrmacht in World War II, but also for its subtle and incisive commentary about the very nature of war itself. What is perhaps most intriguing about Sajer’s novel is his treatment of the supposedly “universal” virtues present within war such as professionalism, patriotism, camaraderie, and self-sacrifice. Sajer introduces a break between how war is thought about in the abstract and how it has actually been conducted historically.

    Read More

  • Firsthand Accounts of World War I

    2167 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the history of modern western civilization, there have been few incidents of war, famine, and other calamities that severely affected the modern European society. The First World War was one such incident which served as a reflection of modern European society in its industrial age, altering mankind’s perception of war into catastrophic levels of carnage and violence. As a transition to modern warfare, the experiences of the Great War were entirely new and unfamiliar. In this anomalous environment, a range of first hand accounts have emerged, detailing the events and experiences of the authors. For instance, both the works of Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque emphasize the frightening and inhumane nature of war to some degree – more explicit in Jünger’s than in Remarque’s – but the sense of glorification, heroism, and nationalism in Jünger’s The Storm of Steel is absent in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Instead, they are replaced by psychological damage caused by the war – the internalization of loss and pain, coupled with a sense of helplessness and disconnectedness with the past and the future. As such, the accounts of Jünger and Remarque reveal the similar experiences of extreme violence and danger of World War I shared by soldiers but draw from their experiences differing ideologies and perception of war.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front Quote Analysis

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful novel that communicates many messages concerning war’s hidden horrors and gives insight into the unique experiences of soldiers. Remarque uses a wide array of language techniques and writing concepts to expose readers to truth of the simultaneously corrupt yet complex affair that is war. It is an important, genuine novel – the type that needs to exist to end dreadful human affairs, such as

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front gives you detail and insight into the long, destructive “Great War”. Quickly, romantic illusions about combat are disintegrate. Enthusiastic teenage boys convinced to fight for their country by their patriotic teachers came back feeling part of a lost generation . This novel teaches us what a terrifying and painful experience World War I was for those fighting in the trenches on the front.

    Read More

  • Destruction in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

    1541 Words  | 4 Pages

    The story takes place through the eyes of a German infantryman named Paul Baumer. He is nineteen and just joined up with the German army after high school with the persuasion of one of his schoolteachers, Mr. Kantorek. Paul recalls how he would use all class period lecturing the students, peering through his spectacles and saying: "Won't you join up comrades?"(10). Here was a man who loved war. He loved the "glory" of war. He loved it so much as to persuade every boy in his class to join up with the army. He must have thought how proud they would be marching out onto that field in their military attire.

    Read More

  • All Quite on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    Away from the front lines, soldiers are perceived and act as individuals, however, when pulled to the front, they come together creating and inseparable bond of camaraderie. Remarque’s All Quite on the Western Front illustrates the true content of war. The soldiers of the front lines fought with a common purpose, putting aside other desires and denying personal needs, creating a flagrant bond of camaraderie. Through this camaraderie Paul Baumer finds life on the front lines bearable, as we see in the relationships the soldiers share. Through Paul’s protection of his comrades, the family like relationship between the soldiers and the development of a close bond during free time, Remarque shows that the most important aspect of war is undoubtedly camaraderie.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front: Destroying a Generation of Men

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whenever one reads or hears about World War I or World War II, you hear of the struggles and triumphs of the British, Americans or any of the other Allies. And they always speak of the evil and menacing German army. However, All Quiet on the Western Front gives the reader some insight and a look at a group of young German friends who are fighting in World War I. “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.....” The soldiers of this war felt they were neither heroes nor  did they know what they were fighting for. These soldiers were pulled from the innocence of their childhood, and thrown into a world of rage. Yet somehow they still managed to have heart and faith in man kind and could not look the opponent in the eye and kill him. For he was man too, he too had a wife and children at home, he too was pulled out of his home to fight for a cause he didn't understand.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel All Quiet On The Western Front contains many incidents where the readers can hold characters responsible for their actions, however his novel in particular relates to the clash of values. Though fictional this novel by Erich Maria Remarque, presents vast detail through the conflicts at the Western Front. Corporal Himmelstoss a character in the novel is portrayed as a stereotypical military man, whose actions, when all's said and done, speaks for itself as the reader really does not question his iniquitous behaviour. However, apart from just the reader holding such characters morally accountable for their actions the novel concerns the rejection of traditional values, Paul’s disillusionment, and life opposed to death. Through such clashing of values, Remarque creates a confronting novel where the plot is for the most part articulated around values in conflict.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

    730 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many of Remarque’s ideas expressed in All Quiet on the Western Front were not completely new. Remarque emphasized things that portrayed the magnitude of issues soldiers face, and how the physical body and senses affects their emotional well-being. The ideas in All Quiet in the Western Front of not knowing the difference between sleep and death, seeing gruesome sights of people, and frustration towards people who cannot sympathize with soldiers, are also shown in Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Dug-Out”, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Vigil”, and Sassoon's’ “Suicide in the Trenches”.

    Read More

  • Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front

    1717 Words  | 4 Pages

    “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another (263).” Powerful changes result from horrifying experiences. Paul Baumer, the protagonists of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front utters these words signifying the loss of his humanity and the reduction to a numbed creature, devoid of emotion. Paul’s character originates in the novel as a young adult, out for an adventure, and eager to serve his country. He never realizes the terrible pressures that war imposes on soldiers, and at the conclusion of the book the empty shell resembling Paul stands testament to this. Not only does Paul lose himself throughout the course of the war, but he loses each of his 20 classmates who volunteered with him, further emphasizing the terrible consequences of warfare. The heavy psychological demands of life in the trenches and the harsh reality of war strip Paul of his humanity and leave him with a body devoid of all sentiment and feeling.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the episodes soldiers go through. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to show the great change war has evolved to be. From lining your men up and charging in the eighteenth century, to digging and “living” in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers being exposed in your trench a short five meters away. Remarque makes one actually feel the fun and then the tragedy of warfare. At the beginning of the novel Remarque gives you nationalist feelings through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war Remarque shows how pointless war really is. This is felt when everyone starts to die as the war progresses.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front and the Horrors of War

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    World War I had a great effect on the lives of Paul Baumer and the young men of his generation. These boys’ lives were dramatically changed by the war, and “even though they may have escaped its shells, [they] were destroyed by the war” (preface). In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer and the rest of his generation feel separated from the other men, lose their innocence, and experience comradeship as a result of the war.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front - A Book Review

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.

    Read More

More about The Horror of War

Open Document