All Quiet On The Western Front: Poem Analysis

In Erich Maria Remarque’s, “All Quiet on the Western Front” the soldiers face fear, hardships, love, trust, and death together during World War 1. The question is, why? All soldiers were clueless to the reason why they had to leave their families, friends, and loved ones, only to return home to suffer from the mental and physical pain afterward. The novel focuses on Paul Baumer who enlists in the German army and experiences the horrors of war while trying to survive in the trenches. “War Some More” by Sandra Osborne connects well with the novel in the sense that war is brutal and brings forth hatred without a solid explanation as to why. In her poem, Sandra Osborne wrote, “All the answers,/ Seem so lame,/ All our reason,/ Gone insane” (Osborne 10-13).

During his stay at the hospital, Paul processes the aftermath of war regarding to the suffering soldiers go through and concludes, “How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture-chambers in their hundreds of thousands”(Remarque 125). Both the poem and novel question the purpose of war and mention how the overall purpose of war is considered senseless, destructive, and results in insanity for all. Paul is infuriated about what he experienced and cannot comprehend the reason why war starts in the first place. As a result, all the reasoning and answers, as mentioned in the poem, are inaccurate and senseless which creates an overall feeling of doubt and rage. Also, Osborne includes, “War. And war some more./ No one knows, /What it’s for,/ War. And war some more”(Osborne