All Quiet On The Western Front Themes

In his magnum opus that closely mirrored his own personal experiences, Erich Maria Remarque had many driving themes, all of which to inform the reader of what war was like, especially for those souls actually experiencing it. Remarque has the themes of the terrors of war, and war's effect on a soldier running throughout the descriptively gruesome novel. Remarque had written the novel to show the citizens and soldiers how terrible fighting for the war really was. The book served its purpose well, and was critically acclaimed, both positively and negatively by many.

One of the many themes in All Quiet on the Western Front is the intensity of how terrorizing a war is, especially to those right in the middle of it. Most war novels written around

the time of All Quiet on the Western Front often over glorified what actually was happening on the battlefield. The ideas of heroism, glory, ultimate patriotism, and even hints of romance in those novels were heavily contrasted with Remarque’s informative story. A war can do much to a young man. In chapter 10, Paul writes “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. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.” (Remarque 263). In that quote Remarque explains how horrifying it is that political leaders can sit in their chairs with minds full of greed and possession while young men are out there dying, throwing away their lives for the sake of their leaders. Paul is horrified in chapter 9, when a French soldier jumps into a shell hole with him, and Paul is forced to kill him. Turning one innocent man against another is one of the most horrifying acts war can perform. Killing innocent, loving people with their very own lives back at home, and taking away the innocence of a young man for an unjust cause, that is where the true horror lies.To conclude the novel, the majority of the main characters are dead, epitomizing the war’s drastic toll on the young men who fought in the awful conflict.
Those horrifying moments will forever have an effect on those young people. In chapter 2, Paul immediately had thoughts of what he will do after the war. He then realizes that his life has become the war, and that the conflict has taken away his future. The other men, who all have jobs and families to return to have a life to look forward to outside of the bloodshed, while Paul and his friends have nothing. Their lives are just beginning, and that has happened and will continue to happen in wars forever. From the civil war to even as close as Iraq, young men are having their lives stripped away from them as they turn into a pawn to serve their government’s military greed. The soldiers are always in life-threatening danger. In the war, any second could be their last. The constant fight against fear, plague, and unsanitary conditions such as: ditches full of rats and water, decaying corpses of friends, lice infestations, gangrene, and simply knowing that people genuinely want you dead, is something that will haunt a person for the remainder of their lives. Paul again says in chapter 11 “All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; – it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct – it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought.” Which is him explaining how participating in such a war pulled the human out of him, and he is now simply a mindless puppet. The war effort ruined many lives, and that is exactly what Remarque set out to expose as he wrote All Quiet on the Western Front.
Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front to show the civilians and soldiers not just in Germany, but all over the world the perspective of the soldiers, and the truth of what went on beyond the newspaper articles. Remarque has been reported on multiple occasions to say that he wrote the novel for personal reasons. His character, Paul, embodied Remarque and his experiences during the war. Remarque writes in Paul’s death to signify the end of his compassionate, human self. The main reason the book was written was to spread the idea of how terrible war is for these people, and what terrible things you can witness while participating.. Remarque wanted people to delve into his mind and see the horrors he saw himself. With that said, Erich did a marvelous job.
Remarque’s novel was met with wide controversy. Many citizens and soldiers appreciated it’s truthfulness and immense detail mixed with great writing, while others despised the book, saying his writing undermines the German war effort. When Adolf Hitler rose to power, that was one of the first books to be publicly burned. Since this is not Germany in the 1930’s, I assume it’s safe to read now. I highly recommend this fabulous work, and suggests that all politicians read this story. With great writing, a horrifying perspective on a war that he should not have been in, and a powerful message, Remarque created one of the greatest war novels of all time.
To conclude with these themes, the horrors of war, and the effects of war on a soldier are two major themes running through the novel.

Remarque uses them to capture the alarming details of how he and his friends felt, and that is why he wrote the novel, simply to inform. I would recommend this book to everyone, but furthermore, I recommend world peace.

Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque throws in a fair amount of symbolism to give support to his themes running through the novels. He gathers together symbols such as the soft airman’s boots, the horses in chapter four, and the butterflies flying around in Germany, and hides them. The reader can easily miss these symbols initially reading through, but Remarque relates them all the way from the themes he is writing about to his boyhood in real life.

One of the most meaningful uses of symbolism in the text are the soft airman's boots, which pass from man to man after each wearer eventually dies in a terrible way. Worn by Kemmerich before his injury that led to his death, they were taken from a British airman before changing hands, which they do twice more as each owner of the boots dies. In all, four men possess the boots; none survives the war. In some parts of the novel, Russian prisoners exchange their boots for bread; dismembered bodies lose not only boots, but the feet and legs they cover. This symbolism supports Remarque's theme of the horrors of war, as people are dying and losing their limbs, showing how

terrible a war can be, especially through a pair of boots making it through four deceased owners. Not only does the symbolism take place in items, but also in animals too.
The horses of Chapter 4 emphasize the change of warfare from earlier uses of animals in war to the modern weapons and machines of death, such as grenades, tanks, flamethrowers, machine guns,, and aerial shells. These horses remind Paul of the steeds ridden by knights of old. Paul goes on to say "It's unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning" (Remarque 42) when talking of the animal cries. Symbolic of the violence humans do to nature, the horses' terrified cries unsettle Detering, the farmer who values the animals far too much to jeopardize their lives in battle. In a similar manner, the messenger dog, also victimized and left to howl its pain, draws Berger into harm's way, where he too dies in No Man's Land. Remarque uses horses to show humans destructive behavior towards nature, and the technological advancement used to further destroy the planet and its inhabitants.
A third symbol, butterflies, comes from Remarque's childhood hobby of collecting butterflies in a jar. For Paul, the butterflies, differing from the threatening balloons that hover overhead, exemplify the innocence and joy of nature. Even when the graceful creatures land on a skull, the butterflies remind the men and the reader that the war zone on which battles are fought still contains an appearance of natural order. A second purpose of butterflies is a tangible representation of fragility and vulnerability. Like the small defenseless butterflies, Paul's life, and the lives of countless other young men, hovers on earth for a short while and ends all too soon. The brilliant thought of Remarque to include the butterflies as symbolism aids his theme of wars effect on a soldier, and shows the reader how weak Remarque felt compared to the masses of enemies all around him. Aside from a spectacular usage of symbolism in his novel, Remarque also wrote with great technique.
Remarque's style involves lots of small words and small phrases. Think about tone in this novel as being gunfire when Paul is on the front lines and violin playing when he's off. The main tone is sparseness, though. Remarque doesn't waste too many words and, in many cases, he skips weeks of pages with a single detail that moves the timeline dramatically forward in a phrase. He doesn't get too emotional over any one friend's death. He continues to drive the story forward in a way that makes it very hard for readers to put the book down. There's a movement and a rhythm to the sentence structures of this novel. Consider Paul’s final words, “The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me” (Remarque 295).
There is a very matter-of-fact, almost confident nature to this language.

Paul is certain of what he knows, and does include extra words, or unnecessary adjectives. In fact, there is only one adjective in the entire passage of the previous quote: "heedless." Similarly, Paul is heedless of our desire to know more. He doesn't to pour out every thought in his head. We know there must be a lot going on in his mind at this point, but he will not say more than is necessary. He is sparing with his words. The book is also written in chronological order, allowing themes and images to mature and grow, as Remarque adds on to his powerful message sentence by

sentence
Lastly, remember that the book was originally written in German, and then translated. There may have been a few words lost in the translation. There is an un-American feel in the text. Because of this, we suppose that a good deal of the rhythms and meanings of the German language were not lost in translation.
Being written with incredible technique, structure, symbolism, theme, and a terrific story, All Quiet on the Western Front should be in the repertoire of every reader. The novel’s powerful message is strongly supported by Remarque’s literary genius, and intense content. All Quiet on the Western Front should be on every required reading list for high school or college students in the nation. This glorious novel will remain forever relevant, as war is always occurring, and the people in power are sending innocent souls to fight for them. Throughout the paper, I have talked of his story and the messages laced throughout the novel, and they all come back to Remarque’s main point he wants to get across. Through it all, Erich Maria Remarque wants everyone around the planet to go into his head, and understand his view and perspective of the fighting, so that every person shall desire peace. Without war, or violence, this world would be much better, obviously, yet some people do not understand that. Remarque is simply persuading the reader against violence, because he knows the toll it takes on the , country, the people, the landscape, and everything else. Through the change of Paul Baumer, to the major themes of how horrifying war is, and what it can do to the soldiers fighting it, to the symbolism of death and nature, and using intense technique and structure to do so, Remarque does in incredible job of showing readers how terrible fighting is, and lets us know that we should avoid war at all costs. God does not want his children fighting. He will guarantee Remarque a spot in Heaven for capturing his message of peace so well.