Review Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

641 Words3 Pages
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, uses intense imagery to show the reader the realities of war, and sends a jarring anti-war message without directing coming out as being against the war. The main theme, running through almost every page of the book, is the impact war has on the youth that are fighting its battles. Because the book is written from the perspective of a young soldier, Paul Bäumer, it explicitly shows the effect of war on the psyche of teenage soldiers. Remarque also uses descriptions of nature to add beauty to the horrors described in the book. When schoolboys enter the war as soldiers, they are going to have a difficult time readjusting to civilian life, because their memories will transform them into haunted human beings. Before the book begins, the theme is given away in the last sentence of the authors short paragraph explaining the purpose of the book. The last sentence reads, “It [the book] will try to simply tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” The generation being referred to is the young soldiers that are 18 and 19 years old, and their minds and bodies are the things being destroyed by…show more content…
Their first job and their first skill is killing those deemed to be enemies. At the end of the book, Paul Bäumer directly confronts the issue of returning home after the fighting stops, “Through the years our business has been killing;–it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death…. what shall come our of us (Remarque 264)?” Paul Bäumer is worried about the youth, himself included, because their most prominent memories are of the war, and he worries that they will be unable to claim the memories of their life preceding the war. The young soldiers in the book are part of a lost

More about Review Of Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front

Open Document