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

Erich Maria Remarque’s enduring novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, is a blunt statement of, in many respects, the horrors of war. No matter how deep Remarque’s anti- war sentiments were, there is no way more striking, nor more nonchalant, to state the visual reminders of a less than humane death which are so abundant in the novel. It might be said that it is the blunt, rather matter-of-fact way, the war is described which formulates such an impression on the reader. War becomes no more than a fact of life for Baumer; this is where, for the reader, the horror lies. Whether it is the soldiers’ loss of innocence, or their disconnection with the outside world, it seemed shocking to some contemporary critics “that such a simple work could be

“I search around…here hang bits of uniform, and somewhere else is plastered a bloody mess that was once a human limb. Over there lies a body …both arms are missing…I discover one of them twenty yards off.” (Remarque, 208) What impression, exactly, did Baumer and his young friends gather and how did these horrors become so natural? For one thing, it was literally all they knew. They had not tasted the real world; they were thrown into the war mentally by the nationalist cries of Kantorek, and no later were thrust into it physically by Himmelstoss. “I am young,” Paul laments, “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’s companions are silent about the mental strains of the war; yet we see their despair played out in the moments of shared friendship and support that are the last tangible source of hope for the soldiers. When Remarque wrote the novel, he intended “Paul…to be more than just an individual soldier, but...representative of each and every individual soldier, whose experiences would be similar”.

We are yet again reminded of how little the soldiers knew of the real world and just how far removed they were from it. “We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers—we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals”. (Remarque, 56) This is not the only reference we find to the men resorting to crude, almost inhumane acts; not to mention behaviors that seem totally contrary to the human spirit. The war has and will forever change the lives of these men-those who survive, at least. When Paul returns home he thumbs through his old books, yet, their magic and interest is forever lost. Pensively he tries to reconnect with these relics of his youth. “Words, Words, Words-they do no reach me…nevermore.” One particularly immature scene is found when Paul and Albert are recovering in the Catholic Hospital in Cologne. The prayers of the sisters prove utterly disruptive with the door open; what better way to get our way, they say, than to shatter a bottle in the hall for attention. “‘Heathen,’ she [the sister] chirps but shuts the door all the same. We have won.”(Remarque,