All Quiet on the Western Front is written by Erich Maria Remarque about what a soldier truly went through in WWI. A general background of the war is that it was between allied powers of UK, France, Belgium, Serbia and Russia against central powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. This book shows the German side fighting on the western front against France’s front line because of the Schlieffen plan. I will be looking at how in this novel WWI was depicted as a gruesome war that in order to survive, a soldier cannot have any meaning to death, detach his feelings, and loss of hope and innocence are a consequence of the war. Paul and his friends have many feeling about the war that contradict with the popular view of nationalism and idealism versus
…show more content…
The author goes into a lot of detail of what the soldiers went through and the things they have seen and dealt with. One important scene is the graveyard scene with the gas attack. This scene has to do with Paul and his unit needing to take shelter in a graveyard from shells and gas being thrown at them. Paul talks about the corpses saying, “It shall protect me, though Death himself lies in it” (Remarque 67) and “They have been killed once again; but each of them that was flung up saved one of us” (Remarque 71). This just tells us that they had to disturb the dead and use the coffins to protect and save themselves. The dead had to help them survive and that in itself is gruesome talk. That the dead are affected and even the animals are injured during the war as well. After a bombardment they hears cries that sounded so horrible that it could not have belonged to a man, but it was a wounded horse. Paul and the rest of the soldiers begged for someone to shoot them and put them out of their misery. One soldier says, “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war” (Remarque 64). That no matter how bad things got, animals should not be used because they never did anything wrong. Also there was one scene that Remarque truly told it how it is and was really graphic was, “We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off {...}; …show more content…
Remarque was actually a soldier in the war and even though All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictional novel, his experiences are in the book. He is well suited to tell the world the raw emotions and feeling have been a part of the war. Also this is a book from a German perspective of the war. In America usually all our war books are written from an American soldier’s perspective so to have it from an ‘opposite’ side is nice to hear. One can get more information and perspective as to what happened. Also if this book was left unread, the meaning of the war will be lost. This book did an amazing job telling the readers exactly how it is, all the gruesome scenes, and how the soldiers were damaged by this war and what it really meant. The reader was able to sort of live the experience of the soldiers through this novel and get in their heads to see what they were thinking and experiencing. Another impact is how the main character dies at the end. That Paul survived so much only to die when the war ended and things became quiet. The lost generation ended when Paul died and the war came to an end. Remarque in the very beginning told the readers the book will not romanticizes death, and that was true. This book had a very ironic ending but it had such a deep meaning that without reading it, one will lose a
The author goes into a lot of detail of what the soldiers went through and the things they have seen and dealt with. One important scene is the graveyard scene with the gas attack. This scene has to do with Paul and his unit needing to take shelter in a graveyard from shells and gas being thrown at them. Paul talks about the corpses saying, “It shall protect me, though Death himself lies in it” (Remarque 67) and “They have been killed once again; but each of them that was flung up saved one of us” (Remarque 71). This just tells us that they had to disturb the dead and use the coffins to protect and save themselves. The dead had to help them survive and that in itself is gruesome talk. That the dead are affected and even the animals are injured during the war as well. After a bombardment they hears cries that sounded so horrible that it could not have belonged to a man, but it was a wounded horse. Paul and the rest of the soldiers begged for someone to shoot them and put them out of their misery. One soldier says, “I tell you it is the vilest baseness to use horses in the war” (Remarque 64). That no matter how bad things got, animals should not be used because they never did anything wrong. Also there was one scene that Remarque truly told it how it is and was really graphic was, “We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off {...}; …show more content…
Remarque was actually a soldier in the war and even though All Quiet on the Western Front is a fictional novel, his experiences are in the book. He is well suited to tell the world the raw emotions and feeling have been a part of the war. Also this is a book from a German perspective of the war. In America usually all our war books are written from an American soldier’s perspective so to have it from an ‘opposite’ side is nice to hear. One can get more information and perspective as to what happened. Also if this book was left unread, the meaning of the war will be lost. This book did an amazing job telling the readers exactly how it is, all the gruesome scenes, and how the soldiers were damaged by this war and what it really meant. The reader was able to sort of live the experience of the soldiers through this novel and get in their heads to see what they were thinking and experiencing. Another impact is how the main character dies at the end. That Paul survived so much only to die when the war ended and things became quiet. The lost generation ended when Paul died and the war came to an end. Remarque in the very beginning told the readers the book will not romanticizes death, and that was true. This book had a very ironic ending but it had such a deep meaning that without reading it, one will lose a