We Want You Remarque Analysis

We Want You

The poem Plato Told by E.E. Cummings illustrates the character of a soldier's thoughts which could be agreeable to the idea of war but how ultimately war results in death. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque sends the subtle message of the reality of war and how losing one's life isn't as honorable as it is presented to be. Remarque shows this reality by the experiences he gives the main character and other soldiers in order to argue against war and build accusations against those who promote it.

Remarque paints a very drastic and probably quite accurate picture of war. Our main character Paul Bäumer narrates how much the war not only affects him but all those around him by explaining and taking note of battle and all the prospects that go along with it. The first important area Remarque has Paul address about the reality of war is the continuous and what seems like never ending amounts of death. When Kemmerich dies, his death is sadly looked upon. Even before his death, his comrades could see that “under the skin [his] life no longer [pulsed], it [had] already pressed out

Despite the message he gives in the very beginning of the book explaining how the book is neither an accusation nor a confession, Remarque is trying to debunk the honorable idea of joining the war by giving his characters realistic experiences of the war. Towards the end of our novel, we see how the perspective changes from Paul’s first person view, to a third person view which is no longer Paul. This last scene of the novel describes the death of our narrator which just goes to show how even though Paul was the main character and lived through the entirety of the book, he ended up dying because that’s the reality of