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Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

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When soldiers enlist in the war, they know they might have to kill people. Even though the soldiers are supposed to kill them, Paul realized he would have to live with it for the rest of his life. This also made his perception change on how he saw the Russians. On his leave, he went up to the fence where the Russians were and thought about how, “their life is obscure and guiltless; -if I could know more of them, what their names are, how they live, what they are waiting for, what their burdens are, then my emotions would have an object and might become sympathy” (Remarque 193). By knowing more of their lives, he would see them as more human.
Throughout the story, Remarque shows how the men involved in war have different perceptions of war …show more content…

She wanted to know what war was like but Paul thought, “Was it bad, you ask -You, Mother, - I shake my head and say; “No, Mother, not so very. There are always a lot of us together so it is not so bad” (Remarque 161). He didn’t tell her because if she really knew what was going on it would have broken her. She was already sick and he did not want to hurt her more by telling her about the war. This adds on to the idea of people having different perceptions of what is going on in the war. The men involved do not have the heart to tell the people not in the war what it is really about while the people not in the war get mad that the soldiers do not tell them about the war. The men in the war do not tell them because if they did, the people not in the war may be hurt by how bad it is. Because of this, they skirt around saying what war is like. This also happens again when Paul goes to Kemmerich’s house to tell his mom how he died. His mom wants to hear the truth about how he was killed but Paul makes up how he because he thought, “When a man has seen so many dead he cannot understand any longer why there should be so much anguish over a single individual. So I say rather impatiently: “He died immediately. He felt absolutely nothing at all. His face was quite calm’” (Remarque 181). He does it because he thinks that it does not really matter how he died, he is dead anyways. Also, if he did tell them, it would have been hard for her to hear the true

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Paul’s intriguing story takes place largely at the front of German lines in World War I. The story is of soldiers and friends that fight and die on and near the battlefront. Situational irony is used numerous times throughout various parts of the novel to exhibit the ever blurring lines of friend and foe alike. Paul starts to question whether or not his school teacher Kantorek and people like him, people that he looks up to, are really on his side or not.

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Because how Paul and his comrades were so young. They started to see the world differently after joining the war to the point, they start to feel saddened in living their life. “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world, and we had to shoot it to pieces. ”,(pg 87). During the war, Paul loses so much, even control of himself that all he felt in the war was mostly

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On both sides of the battlefield are soldiers who are presented with constant propaganda and education that they are superior to every other country, and that they are fighting with great reason. Soldiers have no political influence, and no choice in war. They are forced to convince themselves that the enemy are evil, when in reality it is quite the opposite. Remarque explains that the Russian prisoners that Paul encounters are not much different from the German soldiers, “It is strange to see these enemies of ours so close up. They have faces that make one think...

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After the traumatic experiences he suffered through, Paul made mental growth in the human aspect. He figured out that “there are still human faces” even in his enemies. Further in this realization he sympathizes with the rest of the wounded soldiers stuck in similar hospitals all over the enemy lines. This identification attaches Paul to the enemy, positively affecting his mental condition. He recognizes that he is not as drastically different as he thought which ultimately changes his outlook on the war.

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Such events in the front has shaped his perspective in human beings, he has lost that compassion he used to held. Paul parents also realize that his life will never be the same. Also another piece that supports this evidence is Paul openness towards his feelings when seeing dying patients at the hospital:”...and all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things, all my generation is experiencing these things with me. ”There for showing that all the cruelty Paul has suffered of the war is tag along the same experience towards his

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Paul is happy to be home but is frustrated by all of the questions. He is on leave and would prefer to not talk about the pain and suffering of the war. Paul is struggling with feeling at home as he has spent so much time away, and has already had close friends die and seen horrific things, why would he want to relive that? Especially because it is his mother, he doesn't want to explain the awful parts of the war. He then decides to lie to her.

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In All Quiet on the Western Front, many young soldiers around seventeen years old are being sent to fight in the war without sufficient training. These young recruits are not being sent into this war because they are powerful and prestigious soldiers, but are rather sent in because the German soldiers are losing hundreds of thousands of men and are desperate for replacements. These are teenagers who have a whole life ahead of them, but in All Quiet their lives are being wasted and destroyed in the cruel war, showing that these soldiers are dehumanized because their lives and futures are not valued. In the book, Remarque is able to show the harsh consequences the war does to adolescents that destroy and dehumanize them. One soldier that Paul encounters in All Quiet on the Western Front to a young recruit, described as “such a kid,” (73), by Kat, suffered from a serious injury: “a hip covered with blood,” (71) only recently after arriving at the Front.

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The way Remarque recalls the experiences of Bäumer is done in such a way that the reader is instantly hooked and to some extent linked emotionally with Bäumer, especially when Bäumer talks about how he is affected individually, and when he recounts his personal experiences before, after, and during the war. At one point in the novel, it appears that Remarque was trying to show us that despite the horrors and brutalities of the war, these young soldiers were unable to completely forget

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In addition, the entire situation that Paul goes through when his father “drags [him] along to a table with a lot of others. ”(p. 166) He sees that they don’t understand what war is like at all, as when “a head-master shakes hands with [him] and says: ‘So you come from the front? What is the spirit like out there? Excellent, eh?

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Throughout the story Paul shows that he cares about his comrades by protecting them from the dangers of war, and he also displays that he will guide them in war. Paul uses his skills of intelligence to guide his team in the trenches and at the front, and he passes on his knowledge and tricks of war to the new recruits. Not many soldiers have all of these qualities, which makes Paul stand out more than his comrades. Even today some men don't express the passion and leadership Paul shows in All Quiet on the Western Front, which brings up the fact that the war needs more men like Paul. To sum up, Paul is an honest and true man who will always be there for his comrades when needed, and he is a man the troops are proud to say is a patriotic

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I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave" (Remarque 185). Here, Paul puts aside his emotions, a symbol of his humanity, in favor of animal-like instincts to survive during the war. During his leave, Paul struggles to connect with his family and friends due to his war experiences. He can not agree with the principal's vision of the war because Paul sees through the lies of nationalism and actually experiences the horrors of war.

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In addition, Paul was injured in the book and goes home and stays with her family while he recovers. He is no longer able to relate to his family, since it is very difficult to think and have emotions and at the same time with much death all around him in the war. There is much talk of how he and his friends do not think about deep things, but just think about eating and silly things. His father and people over all his people want me to tell them stories of war and hate Paul because their experiences are horrible. Paul has just returned to the fight and basically everyone in the book is wounded and dies.

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Paul’s reunion with his mother permits him to recognize the impacts war has had on his mind and life. In the seventh chapter, Paul receives 17 days of leave. During this time, he visits his mother as she suffers in ominous distress. After Paul witnesses his mother deteriorating, he aspires to “weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child” (Remarque 183). Paul feels little, if any, content with his life as a consequence of experiencing a plentiful

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In All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque exposes the reality of war by refuting the idea of the “Iron Youth,” revealing the mistreatment of soldiers, and showing the critical effects war imprints on them. When any war begins, young men are always the first ones to be sent into the war zones. To clarify, older generations believe young adults are the best options for fighting; these boys are strong, full of energy, and do not have anything to lose. “The chief source of this pro-war ideology were the older men of the nation: professors, publicists, politicians, and even pastors” (Literature and Its Times).

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