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All Quiet On The Western Front: An Analysis

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Throughout war and particularly World War 1, soldiers may encounter atrocious, terrifying experiences that sometimes no one could even imagine possible. War’s brutality overall can be extremely damaging to those who have served, with the loss of comrades and scaring deaths, potentially causing psychological damage. In the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, the group of men fighting and struggling for their country together overtime develop a special, strong bond with each other. When going through similar types of experiences, they are easily able to understand one another and eventually love and trust with a extreme bond like no other. The main character Paul Baumer and comrade Katczinsky especially express a powerful brotherhood, shown in many occasions. Although Paul and Katczinsky “formerly should not have had a single thought in common-now [they]...are so intimate that we do not even speak” (Remarque 94). By struggling shoulder to shoulder, the characters are able to love each other without any words due to …show more content…

The poem includes descriptions of the speakers comrade, that had recently been killed, giving imagery of what he views. The soldier explains how his companion appears “massacred”, with “his mouth of broken teeth facing the full moon” and “his bloated hands permeating [his] silence”(Ungaretti). With such frightful word choice, the author certainly emphasizes the horrors of war through the use of his words, and it can be inferred that the speaker feels emotionally in pain from this death witnessed when the soldier elucidates how “he has never been so attached to life”(Ungaretti). Although the speaker may agonize over the death of his comrade, he also feels this connection to life because he potentially could be in the same gruesome position, alive one moment and dead the

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