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All Quiet On The Western Front Themes Essay

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Universal Themes in All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front was a novel published by Erich Maria Remarque in 1929. It is said to be the greatest war novel of all time, and it still continues to impact life today based on its universal themes. Just like how war impacted people 's lives back then, it still continues to. This novel discusses the effect it has on the soldiers, and the amount of devastation caused. War is horrible, and it always affects the community; whether it be economically, physically, or mentally.
The first theme; effect war has on soldiers. For the most part, the setting is on the battle field. We, as readers, witness first hand how the war is changing these men. You can see their personality changing. Erich Maria Remarque made it clear her goal was to show the destruction the war caused. She says “All …show more content…

He is excited to join and to serve his country, little did he know that war is an aberration. His whole world turns upside down; experiencing grief, and terror. This caused him to become very bewildered. "The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy. Katczinsky said that was a result of their upbringing. It made them stupid. And what Kat said, he had thought about" (Remarque, 11). When the soldiers joined the war, they had no clue it was going to that life changing. "I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another" (Remarque, 263). Before the war, none of these men had experienced loss, or terror, but after being in the war, those are the only things they

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