Commentary on All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque

771 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Conclusion for all quiet of the western front

All Quiet On the Western Front is a war story that features a young man who is serving in World War 1. It describes what he had witnessed during his portion of time spent there, and what happened around him. The author’s purpose in writing this book is to notify the readers of the hardships and miseries of World War 1. He attempts to inform the readers of what the lives of the men serving as soldiers during the war was like during that time. Erich Remarque, the author, gives a great deal of details and stories to style the sufferings and miseries of the way. He does a great job at getting his point across to enlighten the readers about it. The historical context of this book is World War 1 in Germany. Many people describe the book as “The Greatest War Novel of All Time”, so he did a great job describing the war. The book starts out by talking about how they all went to school together. He introduces all of the characters and describes what they all are like. The characters in this book learn to deal with the cold nights and their growling stomachs. Some of the soldiers would sneak out and get hay to cover up with during the night. (Page 40) During this time in their lives they didn’t think twice about asking a dying person for their things, if they could be useful to them. Kat’s friend, Kemmerich, had his leg amputated and died later on, but at one time when Kat and Kropp went to visit him another man, Muller asked for his boots. Kemmerich didn’t know his leg was amputated or that he was dying, so he didn’t want to give them up. Right before he died, he told Kat to take the boots and give them to Muller (Page 28). People weren’t very sympathetic during this time, if they needed something they weren’t afraid to ask for it. T... ... middle of paper ... ...report on the western front”. After Remarque wrote more books about the war time he wrote about war because he was a soldier at one time, so he knew what soldiers went through and could speak from experience. At first he couldn’t find anyone to publish it for him, but he finally found a publisher and published it. Erich Remarque lived from 1898-1970 and he was a soldier in World War 1. He was wounded five times and the last one was severe. This book made him famous and rich by the age of 33. He knew how to describe the war, so people reading it could imagine the horrors he seen. He didn’t go into great detail about some of the things he wrote about, because I’m sure it was hard for him to talk about it. This book was his most famous writing and he’s still famous for it today. This book did change his life a lot and he moved to America right before he died in 1970.

Show More
Related

  • All Quiet on the Western Front Essays: Catalyst for Change

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is a book written by Erich Maria Remarque. It was a book written to reflect the human cost of war. It shows us how war has a hidden face that most people do not see until it is too late. In the novel, he describes a group of young men who at first think war is glorious. But as the war drags on, the group discovers how war is not all it is set out to be. As the war went on, they saw their friends either die or be permanently wounded. Then the end comes when there was only one person left.

    Read More

  • The Courage and Strength in All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

    2436 Words  | 5 Pages

    Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Trans. A.W. Wheen. New York: Ballantine, 1982.

    Read More

  • Destruction in Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

    1541 Words  | 4 Pages

    Everyone knows what war is. It's a nation taking all of its men, resources, weapons and most of its money and bearing all malignantly towards another nation. War is about death, destruction, disease, loss, pain, suffering and hate. I often think to myself why grown and intelligent individuals cannot resolve matters any better than to take up arms and crawl around, wrestle and fight like animals. In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque puts all of these aspects of war into a vivid story which tells the horrors of World War 1 through a soldier's eyes. The idea that he conveys most throughout this book is the idea of destruction, the destruction of bodies, minds and innocence.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is a historical novel written by Erich Maria Remarque. The novel focuses on a young German soldier and the predicaments he encounters during his life on the front. The novel displays a powerful image to all of its readers and tends to have a long lasting effect on the way that they interpret war. All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that encourages nations to consider the horrible hostilities that war brings on humans before entering into global conflicts. From his graphic imagery and his detailed description of character relationships, Remarque depicts the brutality of the war at the front.

    Read More

  • Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front

    885 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kemmerich's boots, symbolic of a horizontal value system, can be seen to have considerable influence over those in the novel. However, B„umer comments, ".Mller would rather go bare-foot over barbed wire than scheme how to get hold of them [boots]. the boots are quite inappropriate to Kemmerich's circumstances.Mller can make good use of them.", the shift to a horizontal value system, based on materialism and hard-core usefulness, does not necessarily lead to a degradation of humanity. This change in value systems can be seen clearly on page 21, where Paul describes his and his friends' enlisting to the district commandant. They had no plans for the future, having only "vague ideas" regarding life in general, giving to the war "an ideal and almost romantic character". He describes a movement from what is important, before and after his experience in war. He learns that a "a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer"; that "what matters is not the mind, but the boot brush, not intelligence but the system, not freedom but drill".

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quite In The Western Front

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Erich Maria Remarque’s, “ All Quite In The Western front”, he tells a story about a young man, Paul Baumer, and his classmates, Leer, Müller, and Kropp, who voluntarily enlisted in the German army during World War I. They chose to enlist voluntarily after their teacher, Kantorek, made a very inspiring patriotic speech. But after a few weeks they regretted their choice. The barbaric training and the life in the front brought constant mental and physical terrors to the life of these soldiers. They no longer believed in the ideals of nationalism and patriotism that the teacher’s speech had inspired in them. This quote maps out what the book is about, “This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure,

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whenever one reads or hears about World War I or World War II, you hear of the struggles and triumphs of the British, Americans or any of the other Allies. And they always speak of the evil and menacing German army. However, All Quiet on the Western Front gives the reader some insight and a look at a group of young German friends who are fighting in World War I. “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.....” The soldiers of this war felt they were neither heroes nor  did they know what they were fighting for. These soldiers were pulled from the innocence of their childhood, and thrown into a world of rage. Yet somehow they still managed to have heart and faith in man kind and could not look the opponent in the eye and kill him. For he was man too, he too had a wife and children at home, he too was pulled out of his home to fight for a cause he didn't understand.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the episodes soldiers go through. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war. This novel is able to show the great change war has evolved to be. From lining your men up and charging in the eighteenth century, to digging and “living” in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers being exposed in your trench a short five meters away. Remarque makes one actually feel the fun and then the tragedy of warfare. At the beginning of the novel Remarque gives you nationalist feelings through pride of Paul and the rest of the boys. However at the end of the war Remarque shows how pointless war really is. This is felt when everyone starts to die as the war progresses.

    Read More

  • All Quiet On The Western Front as an Anti-War Novel

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    All quiet On the Western Front, a book written by Erich Maria Remarque tells of the harrowing experiences of the First World War as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier. I think that this novel is a classic anti-war novel that provides an extremely realistic portrayal of war. The novel focuses on a group of German soldiers and follows their experiences. Life for the soldiers in the beginning is a dramatic one as they are ordered up to the frontline to wire fences. The frontline makes Paul feel immediately different, as described here. "

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front and the Horrors of War

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout their lives, people must deal with the horrific and violent side of humanity. The side of humanity is shown through the act of war.  This is shown in Erich Remarque’s novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front”.  War is by far the most horrible thing that the human race has to go through.  The participants in the war suffer irreversible damage by the atrocities they witness and the things they go through.

    Read More

  • All Quite On the Western Front essay

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many books contain multiple meanings behind them, and have underlying themes to them. The book All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, is no exception. The plot of the book revolves around a young German soldier by the name of Paul Bäumer. Paul is in the war with his friends that he had gone to school with before war along with other comrades he meets in boot camp. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front there are four main themes which are expressed by Remarque which include: Loyalty and friendship under fire, unbelievable suffering at the hands of other human beings, betrayal by adults, and the beauty of nature in stark contrast to the psychotic experiences of war. In the book there are four different examples which clearly explain how these themes clearly represent the book. All together the themes show the tragedy that war really brings upon people in the least way deserve it.

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque

    2805 Words  | 6 Pages

    Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York. Little, Brown and Company. 1957. Book.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front - A Book Review

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front is the story of Paul Baumer’s service as a soldier in the German army during World War I. Paul and his classmates enlist together, share experiences together, grow together, share disillusionment over the loss of their youth, and the friends even experience the horrors of death-- together. Though the book is a novel, it gives the reader insights into the realities of war. In this genre, the author is free to develop the characters in a way that brings the reader into the life of Paul Baumer and his comrades. The novel frees the author from recounting only cold, sterile facts. This approach allows the reader to experience what might have been only irrelevant facts if presented in a textbook.

    Read More

  • All Quiet on the Western Front: Destroying a Generation of Men

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, is a classic anti-war novel about the personal struggles and experiences encountered by a group of young German soldiers as they fight to survive the horrors of World War One. Remarque demonstrates, through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier, how the war destroyed an entire generation of men by making them incapable of reintegrating into society because they could no longer relate to older generations, only to fellow soldiers.

    Read More

  • Gun Rights Research Paper

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    regulation are as far astray that most citizens will take. Psyche evaluations, firearm safety classes, and of

    Read More

More about Commentary on All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque

Open Document