“All Quiet on The Western Front”, a fictional German war novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. It being an anti-war novel written as a monument for the unknown fallen soldiers...
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war. (Ch 1 9)
Remarque published the profound piece in 1929, told based off his own experiences during World War I in the German army (Napierkowski). At the age of eighteen he was inducted and sent to the eastern front where he was severely injured after seven weeks of battle. While
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When Bäumer returns home, he was unable to identify with memories of his youth nor understand the patriotic enthusiasm of the older generation. Chapter seven of “All Quiet on The Western Front” it was most apparent how war took away the souls of the lost generation and Paul. He was unable to comfortably adjust back to his pre-war lifestyle. Confirming his worries about his detachment and alienation from civilian life (All Quiet on The Western Front). Paul can no longer suppress the trauma he faced on the front. The experiences have profoundly affected him in a way that he cannot verbalize the hardships he has endured (LitCharts). Paul was estranged to his own life, not recognizing people, not being able to do things as he use to, and no longer being able to fit his old clothes. “I know them all still, I remember arranging them in order. I implore them with my eyes: Speak to me –take me up –take me, Life of my Youth…A terrible feeling of foreignness suddenly rises up in me, I cannot find my way back” (Remarque, 272). This only compounds his alienation from civilian life, nothing was the same, he was away from the trenches, but still lay in them. All that Paul knew and loved before had become useless to him, none is needed in battle, therefore was forgotten. Remarque invokes an end for Paul in chapter 12 of the novel, he, the last soldier alive out of his troop of seven men. Germany became desperate and revolts as the war comes to an end. Paul returns home again, this time waiting to die,war has taken everything away from him. His will to live was no longer, unmotivated and no longer had his comrades. He has nothing more to lose, but desperately hopes for a better future. The image of the lost generation is captured, those whom fought will never be able to forget what war has brought them, and no one will understand them or their struggles. Paul describes the lost generation