All Quiet On The Western Front Analysis

In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, the author utilizes juxtaposition and situational irony to demonstrate the negative impacts of war on a soldiers’ relationships, more specifically how being a young soldier isolates one from their family and pre-war life.

Erich Remarque uses situational irony to indicate that the Great War influences the soldiers’ connections to their families, by secluding themselves from their parents and siblings. Near the end of Paul’s leave of absence, he felt isolated and full of regret, “I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless-I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end.”(Remarque 185) This quote accentuates the narrator’s separation from his family, when he cries out “I ought never to have come here.” Moreover, commonly, soldiers are exhilarated to finally go home after long periods of time at the front, and the men dread when they have to return to battle. However, in Paul’s case, he desires to return to the front, rather than staying in his home town and seeing his mother in pain, he yearns to feel numb again. Therefore, Paul is in “agony” because before going on leave, he was hopeless and had no will to live, thus making him a better soldier. Although, after visiting his mother and sister, he has rediscovered a reason to survive, making it harder to