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

All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful anti-war novel written by Erich Remarque. Remarque was a young German solider that fought in World War One. Through his experiences, this novel embodies all the hard hitting, raw aspects of the war, from the physical and psychological horrors to who is the real enemy. Remarque has created a universal portrait of men at war.
One of the aspects of war that Remarque highlighted was the physical horror’s that the soldiers had to go through. Every man during the war saw first-hand what the war could do to you physically. Kemmerich was the first of Paul’s friends that died. He was shot in the leg and had to have it amputated. “Kemmerich has lost his foot. The leg amputated... under the skin the life

Unlike a wounded solider that can be taken to the first aid tent, a soldier that has been crazed has nowhere to seek help. Many new recruits experienced shell shock, a psychological condition due trauma of a bombardment “the first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts his head against the wall like a goat”.(pg 76) Paul also experienced psychological problems himself. In society to kill a person is morality wrong and against the law. But once in the war it becomes second natures to kill. Pauls stabs a man in the throat on the opposition side, it was his first time he had killed a man with his hands and having to watch him die, push’s Paul over the edge “my state is getting worse, I can no longer control my thoughts. What would his wife look like? Like the little brunette on the other side of the canal?”(pg146) By revealing psychological horrors we can see Remarque unbroken message of anti

Like Remarque himself many men enlisted in the war at a young age, fresh out of school and unsure of what to do with there life joining the army seemed like a honourable way to go. Sadly many of these men died never getting to experience life’s fullness and those that did survive would have no job to return to or skill to work with because all they’d known was death, loss and heart ach that they had suffered through. “Men will not understand us- for the generation that grew up before us…had a home and a calling… the war will be forgotten and the generation that has grown up after us will be strange to us and push us aside”. (pg190) the lost generation is important theme that supports the anti-war