All Quiet On The Western Front Boots Symbolism

The Boots of Glory and Terror

In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, the boots of Franz Kemmerich, a solider that fought along side many young and ambitious men, serve as a quite unifying symbol throughout the novel. After the death of Kemmerich, Muller is the first, (among many), to receive the “heir loom” of Kemmerich boots. Kemmerich's high, sinuous; every soldier inherits boots as each owner dies in sequence. In retrospect, however, the boots represent and symbolize an innate and more noteworthy subject. Boots, a simple article of everyday accouterments for the soldiers turns out to be the epitome of the cheapness of human existence in the war, casualty, and then the revival of life through the boots. Kemmerich’s boots embody the parsimony of mortal subsistence in war. Kemmerich’s life is at wits-end, and Muller knows that he is next in line for the boots. “Muller returns to the subject of the boots. They would fit me perfectly.” (Pg. 9) Muller is more apprehensive about a material object rather than a soul of a fellow comrade that will soon take his last breath. Decent pair of boots is more

After the death of one of their own, the boots are given to a solider that has a chance, that is breathing, that has life. The boots are revived with a sense of chance and faith. Not only the boots are being invigorated when the solider puts them on, but so is the solider. On page 279, the narrator says, "Muller is dead... Before he died he handed over his pocket-book to me, and bequeathed me his boots the same that he once inherited from Kemmerich. I wear them, for they fit me quite well. After me Tjaden will get them, I have promised them to him." With the inheritance to the “heir loom” of Kemmerich’s boots, the new solider that is wearing them receives life, and the soul of the fallen solders still lay in the threads and laces of the