What Are The Issues In All Quiet On The Western Front

Often times, readers have trouble finding an exceptional war novel that is interesting as well as educational. In All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, readers follow Paul Bäumer and his unit in an attempt to survive World War I. Fighting in the German army led too many hurdles that included the health of Paul’s unit, the lack of food rations, and the lack of training that the recruits were given. After a brief leave from the battlefront to visit his hometown and his family, Paul realizes he is not the same person who left. Little does he know, he will not be the same soldier as he was right before his leave. Upon arriving back on the battlefield, Bäumer is injured by a falling shell. Once he is healed, he insists

Back during World War I, drafts were implemented by most of the countries involved. Soldiers could be as young as 17 with very little training. In All Quiet on the Western Front, readers witness the loss of a generation of soldiers who are forced to grow up too quickly. In the beginning of the book, readers are introduced to the four different characters, and how “all four are nineteen years of age and all four joined up from the same class as volunteers for the war” (p. 3). Back then the war gave many men a purpose. If they did not have a family or a job, the decision came without much thinking. Other times, men would join in an attempt to provide for and feed their families back home. When struck by homesickness, the boys talked of life back home to brighten the mood (p. 84). However, Paul is given the chance to go home, and upon arriving home, he would rather not mention what he has been through. All Bäumer can think about are his comrades back on the field and how they are all doing. Once Paul returns, he fought for a different reason. All Paul wanted was for him, and every other human being to arrive home

After his leave, Paul is a different person. He goes on to say, “I ought to have never come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless- I will never be able to be so again. 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” (p. 185). It is almost as if he woke up on his leave. He realized that war is a more than something to sign up for with a group of friends. Through his mother’s deteriorating condition and the deaths of friends, Bäumer realizes everyone, especially people back home, feel the effect of the war. Bäumer is affected when he tries to care for a dying enemy in one of the trenches. He goes on to write down the address to send a special letter to the family of the dead enemy. Readers can yet again see the change of heart with Paul when he talks to his now fallen comrade by saying, “Comrade, I did not want to kill you… But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction that I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me…Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us…?”(223). In training troops are taught to kill and defend their country, but being snapped back into reality, Paul realizes how wrong the idea of war is, and he would give anything to keep his