"Sometimes extreme situations cause people to go through extreme changes." This quote is backed up by the events that occur throughout the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque. This book raises the issue of how destructive war can be not only to a country, but also to a generation of a nation. One of the major themes in the story is that of the "lost generation". What Remarque was trying to show, is that an entire generation was lost because of the war.
             The story is told through the eyes of a young German soldier named Paul. Paul joins the war right of high school after he and his friends are told that defending your country in war is a very honorable deed. As the war goes on, many things about Paul change including his views and attitude towards life. Paul enters the war still as a child, but is forced to become an adult due to the life-threatening situation he is thrown into. "Our early life is cut off from the moment we came here, and that without our lifting a hand (19)." Paul has no idea of what war is actually like until he experiences it himself. As they entered the war, there was almost a sense of excitement for he and his friends. None of them had clue of what they were in store for. Paul's education was the key to his future before he entered the war, but as the war went on he began to think of it as useless. "We remember mighty little of all that rubbish. Anyway, it has never been the slightest use to us. !
             At school nobody ever taught us how to light a cigarette in a storm of rain, nor how a fire could be made with wet wood-nor that it is best to stick a bayonet in the belly because there it doesn't get jammed, as it does in the ribs (85)." Taking the life of another man was a hard concept for Paul to grasp, after all he was just a boy, but as the war went on Paul was able to kill without even thinking about it. He realized that the wa...