All Quiet On The Western Front By Erich Maria Remarque

Horrors of War The soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front experience things that the human mind is not capable of coping with; even the substances they abuse cannot help relieve the pain forever. One of the most reoccuring themes throughout the novel is the horrors or brutality of war. As we see for the duration of novel, the horrors of war present themselves in many different shapes and forms. The author Erich Maria Remarque is totally blunt with how he describes war, this brutal honesty also comes from his experience on the Western Front at the age of 18. Other novelists of his time tend to sugar coat and romanticize war, Remarque does the diametrically opposed.

The English have a myriad amount of heavy weaponry and are not shy

While the morning is still young “ he [radios] in the MIA report” for the disappearance of his buddy Kiowa ( O’Brien ). Take a second to imagine what it would be like to file a report saying that one of your friends have gone missing, a friend you have gotten to know, a friend that has pulled you through rough times. On the front, men have to do this daily, the death of a close friend that in itself is horrific. One day on the front you are sprinting for cover, then you see a friend whose “ face was impossible to makeout” this was because of a shell hitting him square in the face ( O'Brien). The distorted, gruesome image of a comrade’s face, seared into the depths of your memories. That right there is one of the core reasons soldiers are scarred mentally and left with

That plays a big role in why certain soldiers decide to take their own lives. The soldier then “ put a bullet through his brain” unfortunately this goes without much notice from the fellow soldiers (Sassoon). Although, the lack of reaction is not necessarily a lack of empathy, but more of a lack of feeling. The lack of feeling has spread to the majority of the soldiers on the front, the soldiers have the mindset that the precious idea of being created and life “ is nothing much to lose”

(Housman). The soldiers are of course mistaken, life and the idea of creation is one of the most beautiful things to lots of people.

In addition to the horrors of war already explained, another one is the fear and reality of not being understood by civilians. The idea of not being understood or treated differently, stems from their ignorance and lack of knowledge for what really goes on during war. Everybody for the most part understands the basic premise of war, but no one understands the mental repercussions it has on a soldier. Simply the war is more complex “ from what people think” ( Remarque 167). It takes experience to understand what the war is really like. Hence the honesty from Remarque himself, this again comes from his experience on the