All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel written by Erich Maria Remarque, a victim and former soldier of war. The author served in the German army during the “Great War” and experienced traumatizing events, such as carrying a dying comrade and frequently working at the darkest hours of the night trying to avoid sniper fire. Once discharged from the military due to medical reasons, Remarque struggled through day to day life, constantly experiencing delusions and trauma from the war. Remarque published All Quiet on the Western Front ten years after the war ended. All Quiet on the Western Front follows the experience of an innocent teenager named Paul Baumer who volunteered to go to war along with fellow peers who went to high school
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The beginning of All Quiet on the Western Front quickly shows the general public’s ignorant glorification and praise of warfare. A keen example would be Kantorech, Paul’s classmates and his high school teacher who persuaded most of the young men to join the military to prove their allegiance to their country. Paul and his former classmates initially embrace their teacher’s beliefs and viewed him as a wise and knowledgeable man, being tied to the brainwashed conception of war. When they become soldiers, the misbeliefs are quickly debunked by the former students’ horrendous experiences, quickly becoming enlightened to the true nature and destruction war can bring. Remarque later ridicules his ideals, by making Kantorech a soldier himself, and shows how useless he is on the warfront, condemning the exaltation of battle. Paul Baumer is also in constant conflict with himself, as he desperately try to regain his happy reality that the battlefront snatched away from him. When he returns home, he is still in misery, as his mother is ill with cancer and his father constantly asks him about the warfront. Simple things like a train screeching to a halt, can bring great terror to the damaged teenager. After visiting home, he realizes that a soldier is the only identity he can hold onto. “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death,
The beginning of All Quiet on the Western Front quickly shows the general public’s ignorant glorification and praise of warfare. A keen example would be Kantorech, Paul’s classmates and his high school teacher who persuaded most of the young men to join the military to prove their allegiance to their country. Paul and his former classmates initially embrace their teacher’s beliefs and viewed him as a wise and knowledgeable man, being tied to the brainwashed conception of war. When they become soldiers, the misbeliefs are quickly debunked by the former students’ horrendous experiences, quickly becoming enlightened to the true nature and destruction war can bring. Remarque later ridicules his ideals, by making Kantorech a soldier himself, and shows how useless he is on the warfront, condemning the exaltation of battle. Paul Baumer is also in constant conflict with himself, as he desperately try to regain his happy reality that the battlefront snatched away from him. When he returns home, he is still in misery, as his mother is ill with cancer and his father constantly asks him about the warfront. Simple things like a train screeching to a halt, can bring great terror to the damaged teenager. After visiting home, he realizes that a soldier is the only identity he can hold onto. “I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death,