All Quiet on Western

Connor O’Mara

History

Dr. Horowitz

All Quiet on the Western Front

For the past few weeks our class has been reading the epic novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. It is set during World War I in the view of a soldier named Paul Bäumer, who is fighting with the Germans on the French battle front. This book explores the ideas of war, nationalism, patriotism and the brutal life of an average soldier.

Erich Maria Remarque in my eyes, uses this book to show the horrific realism of War, it’s effect on soldiers, and overall how the point of War is next to nothing. He demonstrates a thinking that all War stems from false ideologies such as nationalism and patriotism. He seems to show that these particular soldiers in his novel are not fighting for these ideologies (although at first they were) they were fighting to keep their grasp on life. When you read the words of Remarque, he doesn’t hesitate to bring it to you how it is, brutally intense and atrocious. He use’s this technique to turn reader’s against War, to try and show them how futile it really is.

It is clear that Remarque is completely against War. The way he describes the carnage and damage inflicted easily speaks for itself. Chapter 4 is a great example of Remarque delving into this with the newer methods of killing that have been implemented into this war. We are able to see the effects of mustard gas, mortar shells, and high rate artillery fire, which were not used in other wars. This alone show’s a sense of disgust out of Remarque. I read on a website (http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/book-review-all-quiet-western-front) that most books about war before Remarque’s actually romanticized the ideas of war, showing intense loyalty and patriotism stemming from the outcomes. This was the first book to actually show the true colors of war, and that was a bold move by Remarque, but it was needed to get his point through to readers.

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