Summary Of All Quiet On The Western Front

The First World War has impacted the lives of many people, especially the young soldiers who enlisted in the war without knowing how much they had to sacrifice. Enlisting in the war not only meant that they might lose their lives but also that they will lose their youth, themselves and might never be able to have a normal life again. All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque in 1928, is an anti-war novel that depicts the horror of World War I and how it impacted the German soldiers. The novel tells the story of a young, nineteen-year-old, German soldier named Paul who enlists in the army during World War I. After being exposed to a patriotic brainwashing by their school teacher, Kantorek, he and his colleagues

Under the revelation of war, the young soldiers feel betrayed by their masters, family, and everyone who pressured them into joining the war. The novel speaks of their daily lives in the trenches. It talks about the attacks, the rains of shells, the anguish of death, and then the wounded, those who empty themselves of their blood without being able to be rescued those who die in hospitals, the infirm, the disfigured. Nor were the casualties merely physical, and in the end, it was the loss of faith and mental scarring which threatened to wipe out an entire generation. Remarque uses imagery to depict the physical, social, and mental isolation of troops that created the lost generation through the horror of World War I in his classic novel, All Quiet on the Western

Paul is part of the lost generation his only aim, like that of his comrades, is survival. He envies the older soldiers who have a life once the war ends, those who can forget, those who have a trade, a family, a passion. They envy those who have hope and faith, for Paul and his comrades have none of that. They will not do anything but war and will never forget it. Just like Paul states, “[their] early life is cut off from the moment [they] came [into the war] … all the older men are linked up with their previous life. They have wives, children, occupations…, they have a background which is so strong that the war cannot obliterate it” (Remarque 28-29). The war has stripped them of their youth and everything that comes with being young. They will never be able to grow and make something of themselves. They are the “Iron Youth! [a term coined by Paul’s schoolmaster, Kantorek] Youth! [they] are none of [them] than twenty years old. But Young? Youth? That is long gone. [They] are old folk” (Remarque 27). Even though they are only twenty, they do not feel like it. They did not get to go through the steps of growing up. The use of iron imagery symbolizes the soldiers’ loss of their youth. Iron is used for weapons and weapons kill, therefore, referring themselves as the Iron Youth shows how the war have obliterated their innocence. The war used to be about survival but later, they did not care about dying on