If a war veteran was asked about his standpoint on war, he would probably say
that war is hell. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front , Eric Remarque paints the
reader an amazingly realistic image of the suffering of war. War is Hell for Paul because all
of his friends die, he is isolated from his family, and he experiences mental and physical
Throughout the book, Paul takes the reader through the harrowing tale of death
and tragedy as each of his friends die. In the story, Paul says on page 157 " I am twenty
years young, and yet I know nothing but death, despair, fear, and a fatuous superficiality
cast over an abyss of sorrow." Paul is grief-stricken by the loss of each of his friends, and he
couldn't handle it. Paul later goes on to say " What is there that I hold dear anymore?"(pg.
209). That is key because Paul feels he has no reason to go on living without his friends.
The loss of Paul's friends is very important to the cause of Paul's own death.
As Paul leaves for the front, he is isolated from his mother and father. At one point
in the book Paul states, "I live only for my parents and my comrades."(pg. 56) He
obviously loves and misses his parents very much and expresses his love throughout the
book. While Paul is on the front, a commander tells him that he may go on leave and see
his parents. It hurts him so bad to see them that he thinks to himself , " I ought never to
come on leave."(p. 222) When he sees them, he gets so caught up in his emotions
that he wants to curl up in his mother's lap and cry, but Paul has to be a man, like the army
has taught him to be. It is very hard for Paul to go on without his parents by his side.
The main principle that makes war hell is that a man's life could be taken away so
fast that it is unreal, most likely in an extremely pai
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