All Quiet On The Western Front Nihilism Analysis

In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, displays that nihilism is a result of war. Throughout the book, several key events occur that point back to that theme, nihilism is a result of war. War fosters nihilism and creates a loss of innocence in the soldiers. The feeling of nihilism causes the soldiers to expect death, and channel their feelings into caring only about material things. This book, All Quiet on the Western Front, gives countless examples that point to the main theme, war causes nihilism.

During the war, soldiers lose their innocence. One example is when a new fair-haired recruit lost his innocence during his first bombing in the trenches. This boy is scared out of his mind. He is huddled on the ground in fetal position and his helmet has fallen off. Paul goes to help him, but the fair-haired recruit crawls into Paul's arms like a child and sobs until the bombing ceases. This young boy lost his innocence during the bombing, he saw and heard things no one should ever witness. Even though his

In war, horses are one of the most innocent things. Paul’s unit was in a trench when the enemy started firing at them. Suddenly the men could hear these horrific cries from nearby. The cries were coming from wounded horses. “It’s unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning.” (61) That quote describes how painful it was for the men to listen to innocent creature slowly die. The horses have done no bad deed, they just happened to be standing where the shots were fired and were hit instead of the enemy. This shows how war creates a loss of innocence, in multiple aspects. While the men were listening to the horses cry for hours, waiting to be put out of their misery, the men become depressed. War has no mercy not even on the most innocent