What Is Remarque's Relationship In All Quiet On The Western Front

Even though a story is not an autobiographical work, a relationship can still exist between the author and the main character. This circumstance occurs in the anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front. This novel presents a relationship between the main character Paul Baumer and the author Erich Maria Remarque. If a reader knows Remarque’s life and background, the reader can determine the connection between his life and his work. All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictional story and contains fictional characters, but Remarque bases these characters on real people he actually knew and used Paul Baumer to represent himself (Roberts). All Quiet on the Western Front was the closest book to Remarque since he had personal experiences of the war (“The Life and Writings of Erich Maria Remarque”- nyu.edu). Remarque exhibits a relationship between his life and personal experiences with the main character of All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Baumer. Remarque was drafted into the German army at age 18 in November 1916. He was never in actual war combat, but he still managed to get wounded by shrapnel in July 1917; he spent the next fifteen

Both were in the army as early as age eighteen and both were confused at the threshold of adulthood. Remarque’s diary expresses confusion during the beginning of adulthood; Paul was unsure of his future if the war ended (“The Life and Writings of Erich Maria Remarque”- nyu.edu). Paul did not know much about life so he could not imagine his postwar life. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul claimed, “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow” (Remarque 263). Paul did not know enough about life leading to his confusion; he only knew what war presented to him about life. Remarque’s confusion relates to Paul’s confusion at the beginning of