All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the most influential novels ever published, depicts the horrific events of World War I. Written around 1929, the author Erich Maria Remarque himself participated in the war therefore enabling him to provide the realistic details to accomplishing his successful book. The story is based on the narration of a German soldier, Paul Baume, who presents the reader with graphic and visual scenes of the actual war. Through illustrating the cruelty and brutality of war, Remarque succeeds in delineating an accurate portrayal of World War I and producing an extremely anti-nationalistic novel, infuriating the Nazis tremendously. Throughout the book, Remarque aims at showing the unprecedented atrocity and bloodshed of World War I. Whereas war novels in the past presented war as glorifying, romantic and honorable, All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the harsh realities of war with the massive slaughtering and bloodbath of men. In one case, a recruit still alive, laid on the ground with his hip in "one mass of mince-meat and bone splinters (71)," proving war's callousness. Therefore, Paul's debating whether to just take a revolver and end the poor man's misery also demonstrates the ruthlessness of w
Furthermore, when asked about the soldiers' future plans, their inability to foresee their future as a normal person other than combating on the trenches again exemplifies war's devastating effects on the men's humanity and "the common fate of the generation (87). Therefore, a lack of nutrition along with the unsanitary conditions typically resulted in fatal diseases including "dysentery, influenza, and typhus" which usually led to "scalding, choking, and death (283). " For example, upon returning home, Paul perceived his home to be a "foreign world," realizing his parents to be completely incomprehensible and the people to be all too different. Moreover, even more dramatic, Remarque makes note of the fact that on every yard, a dead soldier was found. Remarque illustrates the uncertainty soldiers faced with the incident of Paul visiting another friend in a different dugout and returning to the first only to find it blown into pieces by a direct hit. The front appeared to be "a cage in which [men] must await fearfully whatever may happen (101). Similarly, the remaining soldiers, rather than grieving over their lost friends, seem to be more concerned whether the cook would distribute the additional food to them. Paul remained silent throughout his visit home, knowing the fact that it is "dangerous to put [his experiences] in words (138). Modern trench-warfare, therefore, according to Remarque required knowledge and experience. Moreover, bombardments, barrages, curtain-fires, mines, tanks, hand-grenades mostly characterized the bloody war. During the nineteenth century, nationalism permeated throughout Europe, which was the conviction that one's nation was superior to all others and that citizens should sacrifice and remain loyal to the state. In addition, after his death, he was immediately cleared away and replaced by another injured, which clearly illustrates the false existence of honor and glory that war supposedly generates. Sadly, none of the civilians understood the realities of trench warfare, but only believed the soldiers to be patriotic heroes.
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