All Quiet On The Western Front Themes

The book All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, has many apparent themes throughout it. One of the main themes is the Lost Generation. It is defined as, by dictionary.com, as “the generation reaching maturity during and just after World War I, a high proportion of whose men were killed during those years”. The novel is set during World War I, focusing on young men fighting for Germany. All Quiet on the Western Front emphasizes the Lost Generation because of how it focuses on how the soldiers were affected mentally and physically at such a young age. Paul and his friend went into the war very young. Some of the boys did not even finish high school, Before the war, all they had was schooling, and some other hobbies but not many. During the war, Paul thinks back to the stories he used to write, and he calls them childish. “We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in war.” (Remarque 121) These teenagers had not found themselves before the war. Being soldiers is the only thing that they knew. Paul and his friends were also pushed to join the war; they never had a chance to find themselves on their own. Many men never really found themselves, the war formed them into who

Paul and all of his friends died. Death was a very real thing during the war. All the time comrades were dying. “Under the skin the life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out to the boundaries of the body. Death is working through from within. It already has command in the eyes.” (Remarque 72) Death is personified a lot throughout the book. When Kemmerich died it was hard for all of the men. Paul had been friends with Kemmerich since they were children. It was also Paul’s first experience with being with someone as they took their last breath, but definitely not the last death to be