General Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men.

The narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer, loses his humanity in and through World War I. Baumer goes from a piteous young man to a stalwart soldier. He learns the characteristics of a valiant warrior. The German veteran becomes incapable of expressing his feelings about the war. Baumer can no longer think of a future without war. He becomes a pessimistic, negative soldier. He no longer fears death and treats it like an ordinary event.

While Paul, the main character, was on leave from the war he says, “I find I do not belong here any more, it is a foreign world” (168). For the soldiers the real world is hard for them to cope because they are so accustomed to battling for their lives. They are so used to be in a world where all they do is fight; to come home to normalcy where there is no battling and worrying is

The book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque gives us a good understanding of what war was like for the people fighting on the front. When reading this book people can get a front hand experience of what it is like being in battle. Remarque wrote this book so well that often times you picture yourself actually with Paul and all his friends. The one thing you specifically get to see is how humanity affects warfare. Humanity affects our decisions in warfare because humans are selfish, have fear, and seek revenge.

Erich Maria Remarque’s classic account of misery, woe, and war overrides the plot of All Quiet on the Western Front, recreating the devastation and emotional dismemberment of German soldier, Paul Baumer, and his childhood acquaintances. Baumer is violently ripped through a symbolically eternal dispute between opposing nations; however the entirety of the novel is seen through Remarque’s eyes. As a vessel for propaganda and persuasion, Remarque attaches parasitic personalities, desolate descriptions, and vivid verbs to convey desperate times on The Western Front. Without Remarque’s vocabulary and literary devices, the novel would be stripped of its ability to evoke passionate emotions in the reader.

The war novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque depicts one protagonist, Paul, as he undergoes a psychological transformation. Paul plays a role as a soldier fighting in World War I. His experiences during the war are not episodes the average person would simply experience. Alternatively, his experiences allow him to develop into a more sophisticated individual. Remarque illustrates these metamorphic experiences to expose his theme of the loss of not only people’s lives but also innocence and tranquility that occurs in war.

Erich Maria Remarque, a World War I veteran, took his own personal war experience to paper, which resulted in one of the most critically acclaimed anti-war movement novels of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front. The voice of the novel, Paul Baumer, describes his daily life as a soldier during the First World War. Through the characters he creates in the novel, Remarque addresses his own issues with the war. Specifically, Remarque brings to light the idea of the “Iron Youth,” the living conditions in the trenches, and the sense of detachment soldiers feel, among other things. Therefore, All Quiet on the Western Front criticizes the sense of nationalism, which war tends to create among citizens by quickly diminishing any belief regarding it as a glorious and courageous act. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque exposes the reality of war by refuting the idea of the “Iron Youth,” revealing the mistreatment of soldiers, and showing the critical effects war imprints on them.

War is a harsh reality that is inflicted upon the unwilling through the “need” of it’s predecessors and those whom wish it. All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is about 19 year old Paul and his friends in the “Second Company”. Even though they are just out of school age, they have already seen things that many could not bear to even think about. Eventually, all of his friends die, and even Paul too, dies. Remarque uses diction and syntax as literary devices to express his anti-war theme, or lesson.

Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.

In the year 1914, a war started that would turn innocent people against each other, and have aftermaths that include thousands of people dead due to new equipment like tanks, gas attacks, and hand-to-hand combat. In this war there was a soldier named Paul Bäumer who is a German nineteen year old who has made friends that will last a lifetime during this experience, but has also felt immense pain. His daily routine is to sleep, eat, and fight in the trenches, and he experiences death every day. Most soldiers view death as a recurring event, but Paul views it as wretchedness, which makes him different from others by caring about his comrades more than others. Paul shows many qualities through this experience of being a soldier in the First World War, and he learns what is necessary in life, which takes some people years to figure out. In All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Paul Bäumer participates in the bloodiest war of all time, and he develops the skills of intelligence, leadership, and loyalty.

All Quiet on The Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel composed after World War One to convey the experiences of German soldiers during this horrific time of fighting. He brought to light many important issues that occur during wars. In this book, three horrors of war that had the largest impact were the lack of sanitation in the trenches, the loss of comrades, and the shock that came from unexpected and ongoing shelling.

"Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and uniforms you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert (Remarque 223)". Comradeship among soldiers is a major theme throughout the novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front" because the soldiers knew each other before the war, protected each other during combat, and can relate to one another without having to literally speak.

From 1914 to 1918 World War One occurred due to the murder of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by a Serbian group named the Black Hand. Additionally, several powerful countries, including Germany, France, and Britain, established a series of alliances that amplifies the size of the war. Likewise, the war expanded by the strong nationalist beliefs of each country, therefore a countless amount of men desired to fight the war, in order to support their country. This sense of nationalism is a theme explored throughout Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front, through the lense of a young German Soldier. The protagonist, Paul, a 19 year old soldier, explores the horrors of war through strong comradeship, the death of companions,

Conflict is what drives all stories, but stories with similar themes may use them differently in order to give different lessons and persuade you to form different opinions. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque and The Redemption of Althalus by David & Leigh Eddings have the similar themes of war, morals, and family, but display them in very different contexts to create unique conflict between their characters.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is a war novel by Erich Maria Remarque that reveals the ways in which war is not glorious, and the ways in which destroys a soldier 's happiness, innocence, and youthfulness. In addition, it uses imagery and characterization to describe some of the hardships the soldiers face in the trenches and at the front. Likewise, "Suicide in the Trenches" is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon that glosses over these topics as well, in the form of a poem. While both Remarque 's "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Sassoon 's "Suicide in the Trenches" portray war as a destroyer of innocence and youthfulness, Remarque 's use of characterization to illustrate the theme is more effective than Sassoon 's use of imagery and word play, because it is more