All Quiet On The Western Front Line Analysis

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All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel which examines the emotional wounds and traumas experienced by troops fighting in the trenches of World War I and the disparity between the nationalistic sentiment with a sense of duty that dominated thinking of the day against the grim realities of combat. The author illustrates these aforementioned points by telling the stories of several troops on the front line depicting both their external realities and way of life along with their methods of handling the stress and impact of attrition based trench warfare. In the text the emotional divide between those who fight and those who direct is demonstrated from the followers perspective. The opening of the book outlines the major themes and plot points that are contained within the text and sets the novels grim tone directly from the outset. In the first chapter the main character Paul Baumer and his comrades visit a friend who had been wounded and is in hospital, instead of being taken by grief over their fallen comrade and his imminent death they are instead consumed by the issue of who shall inherit his boots once he has passed. The symbolism of the boots and the morbid…show more content…
The characters as young men had once been inspired by their teacher and those like him however the more they were exposed to the miserable existence and danger of the trenches they grew to resent him and the school of thought which he represented finding it to be detached and ignorant from the realities of armed conflict. These differences are reinforced as the group continues to sustain casualties and are dehumanized whilst the old dogs of the prior generations romanticize battle and praise the war

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