All Quiet On The Western Front Earth Analysis

In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque shows the reverence that soldiers feel for the earth whilst demonstrating how war causes men to lose their humanity in order to survive. Whilst fighting, the soldiers often find themselves being saved by the earth which results in them feeling reverence towards it. Since the Earth provides a place for the soldiers to hide and shelter, they rely on it for comfort and safety, seeing it as a maternal figure. Whilst feeling the intense fear of death, the earth becomes the soldier’s “only friend, his brother, [and] his mother” (39). The soldiers “[urge themselves] deep into [the earth] with [their] face[s] and with [their] limbs” like a frightened infant burrows their face into their mother (38). To

Due to the earth often being the difference between life or death, the soldiers feel that it has power over their fates. As he leaves Kemmerich dead at the hospital, Paul feels that “the whole earth is suffused with power and it is streaming into [him], up through the soles of [his] feet” and this causes him to feel “alive”(23). The same immense power is felt when the soldiers are at the front line. They believe that the earth “gives [them] another ten seconds of life, ten seconds to run, then takes hold of [them] again- sometimes for ever” (39). This quote demonstrates that the soldiers credit the earth with their survival and feel as if the earth chooses who lives and who is buried. Through seeing the earth both as a maternal figure and as a god, which are both positions of authority, the soldiers feel deep respect towards it. Remarque writes “earth- earth-

The soldiers begin to behave like animals rather than people as they turn back to their primitive instincts. Frequently, Remarque uses similes and metaphors to compare the soldiers to animals. For example, Paul crawls towards the earth as “flat as an eel” to take shelter in a shell hole (46). Also, a falling airman is described as “a black winged insect trapped and trying to escape” (41). This subtle device creates an effect of taking away the humanity from the soldiers and causing the readers to see them as animals rather than men. More explicitly, Paul states that the soldiers “reach a zone where the front line begins, and [they turn] into human animals” (39). Throughout the fighting, the transition to instinct proves “far more reliable than conscious thought” as it “directs and protects” the soldiers (39). From the very first day of training for the army, the men were forced to “[surrender] their individual personalities”, thus taking away their human emotions and behaviors (16). They appear to have become desensitized to the death around them, which would distress most people, as they react to the deaths of their comrades with pleasure since they will get extra food rations (3). Another example of this loss of humanity is when Kemmerich is dying, but Müller is concerned because “if he goes during the night [he’s] seen the last of [Kemmerich’s] boots” which he