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The Effects Of War In All Quiet On The Western Front

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World War One was an extremely gruesome and vile event to ever happen to the world, where millions of young men risked their lives to fight for their country. Many great poems, books, and literature had been composed to expose the vileness of the war, and hopefully to prevent future wars. Throughout the intense novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Remarque and some of the poems explored during class, exemplifies the themes about the horrors of war and the lost generation prevalently within these somber, yet incredible works to showcase the ghastly effects of war.
Horrors of war is a crucial theme that is repeated through most of the literature analyzed throughout this tragic unit, and the effects of the horrific war takes an extreme …show more content…

The generation that had been lost were the soldiers, but also the unborn children of the fallen soldiers. Within Baumer’s catastrophic time in the war, death is happening to his left and right, somehow he cannot escape the terror of death. Once Kemmerich has slowly and painfully died, “alone there have been sixteen deaths- [his] is the seventeenth,” and the hospital expects more from only just that day (Remarque 32). Seventeen (and more) lost soldiers in one day from war proves that generations has been lost due to the intense killings throughout the war. Additionally, the young men’s lives had been taken too young, the naive boys losing their futures and future opportunities that will never come. In Housman’s poem “HERE DEAD WE LIE” the dead are talking to the living soldiers, encouraging their fight and risking their lives. Reassuring the young soldiers that life is really nothing to lose when fighting for your country, “[although] young men think it is, And [they] were young,” not knowing that they died for the right cause (Housman). The fallen soldiers, although young, are ironically convincing the living soldiers that it is alright to die for their country, and not to worry if they fall in the war as well. The lost generation is another key theme exemplified throughout the works of Remarque and Housman by the mass of soldiers killed from

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