Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Words: 734
Pages: 3
Open Document
“The War to End All Wars” is one of the many names World War I was named due to having the most bloodshed in our history and claiming over 16 million lives. In the war novel, All Quiet On The Western Front, German writer Erich Maria Remarque writes of Paul Baumer and his comrades going through many psychological effects at such a young age. Due to experiencing many traumatic events during World War I Paul Baumer suffers from loss of trust, feeling detached from others, and dehumanized.
Throughout the war, Paul Baumer and his comrades lose all trust on teachers, their military, and community due to persuading them to join at such a young age and the military making them fight battles they did not create. When Paul’s comrade Joseph Behm was not …show more content…
This made Paul and his comrades loss their trust on teachers due to them being their guides and safety instead they would push them to join war not realizing the horrors it would bring them. After Paul goes on leave he meets a “red cross sister” who serves him coffee and with much enthusiasm calls him “comrade” not knowing it makes Paul upset due to it being a name they called soldiers who were killed or wounded in the front. Paul loses trust for the sister simply because she does not know what soldiers have experienced in the war and only knowing what they have heard. Once Paul arrives home he walks down the streets and encounters his German-master who takes him to get drinks with the other masters and asks him how things are like in the front. When Paul goes into the bar he is greeted by a headmaster who asks him if he just came from the front and with humour tells him how the front has been treating them (Excellent, eh? Excellent?” (Remarque 166). Paul explains to him it would be better to be home than back at the front. Paul loses trust in his masters due to making fun of the war and not knowing the reality of what soldiers deal with daily in the front and the experiences
Show More

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

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

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…

Words 793 - Pages 4

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

basics of the war; the start of the war, the battles and propaganda used, post war effects, and Erich Maria Remarque’s(a soldier during WWI) book, All Quiet on the Western Front. World War I, later known as the Great War, was the first ever global war that was costly and grand. The effects of the war led to changes in political powers in Europe, Asia and Africa. The war “fundamentally weakened the Western European powers, thus encouraging the growth of nationalism…

Words 1428 - Pages 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is an example of how history can be interpreted through a first-person view. The strategies of war discussed in the novel explore various sides of humanity. At its core, war is an extreme form of nationalism. Finally, the novel explores how war shaped pre and post European society. All Quiet on the Western Front shows that Germany would do whatever it took to win, no matter the consequence. During wartime Germany, the expectation was that the war would be a short one…

Words 751 - Pages 4