Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Words: 793
Pages: 4
Open Document
Erich Maria Remarque’s writing was greatly influenced by his military background. Erich was recruited into the German Army during World War I at the age of 18. As well as serving in the military, Remarque held many careers, including a librarian, businessman, and a writer. In 1928, he published his best known novel All Quiet on the Western Front. The novel was about how the continual stresses of war changed soldiers’ perception of the world, leaving them numb to life outside of the battlefield. Injuries separating the company, the constant struggle for food, and threat of death kept any sense of normal life a fading memory. Injuries separating the company was demonstrated in this novel a plethora of amount of times. Starting from the first word in All Quiet on the Western Front to the last, there are many injuries that the soldiers suffered. In chapter one, a full company of one hundred and fifty men results in only 80 strong, after Englishmen fired high-explosives on the Germans during a fourteen day war. In addition, a solider named Kemmerich is injured in the war, who now …show more content…
In chapter six, the men pass a shelled schoolhouse and there, stacked, are brand-new coffins. As the men make jokes about it, they understand that these coffins are made for them. As for the end of the chapter, these coffins are proved to be necessary. In chapter 11, the men think of war as an illness; the front is very bitter…Paul begins to think of it like cancer or tuberculosis. He begins to appreciate every moment of life as it is unpredictable. Anything can happen. And as it goes for anything, even the most unlikeliest person, Katczinsky is shot in the thigh and later dies. You live every moment and don't know what could happen and what to expect. In this novel, the men learned to not take anything for granted and that the threat of death is lurking around in the mist of
Show More

Related Documents: Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Review Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front in order to shed light on World War 1 and in the foreword he claimed, “This book is neither an accusation nor a confession,” (Remarque) The purpose of All Quiet on the Western Front was not to criminalize his country it was written to show the brutality of war and we can see this by the author’s biography, the author’s audience and the author’s description of the war in of itself. Erich Maria Remarque witnessed the war from a perspective…

Words 264 - Pages 2

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

is the exploitation of men’s weaknesses, whether it be by the wrongdoing of the enemy or oneself. The major theme within All Quiet on the Western Front is conflict, which all men must battle through to survive the war. The psychological, natural, physical, and emotional conflicts expressed in war either creates the man or kills the boy. Battling these conflicts takes most of all man’s strength to survive, then save enough to endure war itself . The psychological viewpoint of war can either make…

Words 773 - Pages 4

The Comrade In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

In Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, a story about war and combat, his sole purpose is camaraderie and exemplifying the fellowships formed throughout these gruesome and dreadful experiences. Comrades, more than just the people who share the battlefield with soldiers who fight for the same thing, they and their fellow soldiers grow up together, work together, and grieve together over the death of a fellow comrade. A few of the soldiers, and main characters in this novel, all began…

Words 300 - Pages 2

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque, a World War I veteran, took his own personal war experience to paper, which resulted in one of the most critically acclaimed anti-war movement novels of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front. The voice of the novel, Paul Baumer, describes his daily life as a soldier during the First World War. Through the characters he creates in the novel, Remarque addresses his own issues with the war. Specifically, Remarque brings to light the idea of the “Iron Youth,” the living conditions…

Words 1083 - Pages 5

Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Have you ever had a family member return from war? Erich Maria Remarque's book All Quiet on the Western Front is a book about a German soldier, Paul Bäumer, that is urged to join the German army. When he returns home, he finds out that he does "not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world." Everyone thinks that whenever people come back home from war, they'll be the same person, but in reality, they have changed. They have seen lots of their friends and comrades get killed in action, and it has…

Words 477 - Pages 2

Summary Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front in Remarque uses all kinds of symbols, the newly built coffins, representing the death of all the fallen soldiers and how it could be them next, and also the symbol of the butterflies bringing hope, and life to the front. One use of symbolism that the reader finds very meaningful is when Remarque wrote “Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand new coffins” (99). The coffins symbolize how the soldiers…

Words 391 - Pages 2

Summary Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque's All quiet on the western front portays the changes and horrors that occurred in a average German soldier's life during World War 1. Paul and his friends enlisted in the German army after being persuaded by their teacher, Kantorek who spoke of patriotism and heroism to their country. Paul didn't realize how much the war could destroy him mentally and physically. Paul wasn't able to relate to his family because they don't realize that war is romanticized. They don't understand…

Words 655 - Pages 3

Who Is The Soldier In Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that dispels beliefs about the glory of the soldier. Remarque vividly describes the dehumanization of trench warfare and war in general. He exposes the incredible toll that combat takes on soldiers—all for the purpose of fighting other people’s battles, against other soldiers who have nothing personally against each other. The novel went past the obvious physical damage that soldiers faced and gave insight into the mind of one particular…

Words 1106 - Pages 5

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

upon them in the World War I battlefields. Erich Maria Remarque was among the soldiers to survive and he left the war feeling betrayed and traumatized. Many soldiers felt this way, from every side. Remarque responded to the misery he saw by writing a novel about his experiences, using the character Paul Baumer as a narrator who guides the reader through the sights and emotions of a soldier life during the war. One of his goals was to make the home front, which had been kept deceived and oblivious…

Words 945 - Pages 4

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

the intellectual front, where it marked a turning point for in the clash of European intellectual values. For the past half century, philosophers such as Nietzsche and Freud had already challenged established institutions of Positivistic thinking toward knowledge and progress. However, it was the uncertainty and disaster of the war that accelerated their movement by inspiring culture-wide undermining of prior intellectual beliefs: alongside Expressionist artists, authors such as Erich Remarque and Vera…

Words 1495 - Pages 6