All Quiet on the Western Front

A detailed Summary of All Quiet on the Western Front

After completely forgetting having read this book in high school, I settled down to start again. Little did I know this time around that I wouldn't be able to put the book down. Partially just because the book itself was interesting, yet mainly because my background knowledge from class made the novel so much more appealing. All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque gives the first hand experiences of World War I; living in the trenches at the front line, dealing with the hardships of war, and also substituting everyday life for the war and its aftermath. Although an easy piece to read, the novel is better supported by a clearer understanding beforehand of the war itself and exactly how and why it was brought about.

Very early on in the novel we learn of those in Paul's company. Paul Baumer himself is just 19 years old at the start of the war. He had entered under extreme pressure from Kantorek (their teacher) along with the rest of his classmates and enlisted. Stanislaus Katczinsky (known to the men as Kat) is a soldier in Paul's Company and becomes Paul's best friend in the army. He is forty years old at the start of the novel and has a wife and children back at home. Throughout the war, he proves to be th

I now know why this novel has received the attention that it does. My first time around, I took it for what it was worth, read just the words on the page at face value. Coming back to it again, and so happy that I did, with a deeper knowledge of the war and an actual eagerness to understand it further, All Quiet on the Western Front has given me a deeper appreciation of the heroes of our country and an awareness of 'life'.

Paul's experiences throughout the war include some other men, both in his Company and on the outside. Corporal Himmelstoss was a training officer who lets power go to his brain and nearly tortures Paul and his friends throughout the training process. It is not until Himmelstoss experiences the war and trenches on his own that he attempts to make peace with them. Haie Westhus was a friend of Paul's in the Second Company. Before the war, Haie was a peat-digger and due to his unhappiness at his job, he plans to continue and serve a full term in the army after the war is over just to keep from returning to peat digging. Detering, another of Paul's Second Company friends, tends to think of nothing more than his farm and his wife back at home. Although instructed by his comrades to remain where he was, Detering attempts to take off and return home only to be caught and court-martialed for the remainder.

All of these men, whether young at start or grown, have grown immensely. Sitting together, discussing what they will do once the war is over becomes a reality check for many of them. "How can a man take all that (real world, job, school) stuff seriously when he's once been out here?" (p78). Paul goes on to answer this question which has been passed around the group and states that nothing can fulfill a mind after what has gone on there. It is then that they allow reality to set in and speak it out loud: "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces" (p79). It was as I read this part that I begun to try to imagine how different life may be for some very close friends of mine in the very near future. With everything that 'our' world is going through right now and being at their age, I can't even begin to imagine life as they have it. Then I look at friends of mine training in the Na

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Approximate Word count = 1530
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels