All quiet on the western front essay
Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, transpires in the trenches of the Nazi Western Front, which is protected by the young German soldiers World War I. Paul Baumer, the narrator; enters the war under pressure to enlist; goes to the front and learns about the brutality of war. Paul witnesses the extreme violence that defines war during his time spent on the Western Front. Baumer and his cronies learn to except the war as part of their lives, but the pains of battle which tear the young soldiers apart inside never leave. When these armed men return to normal civilization, disappointment strikes deep in their hearts as the ignorance of those not in the war reveals itself. The now savage killing machines can no longer relate to everyday society. The common populace knows not of the harsh realities of war, and for this reason they innocently talk as though the fighting and killing that characterizes the seemingly eternal siege, possesses some glorifying reward. The people who have not been forced to look into the eyes of a dying comrade, whose legs have torn off due to the shrapnel of a mortar, can not sympathize with the broken hearts of the soldiers. They only visualize a possibly strenuous battle resulting in few casual
ties and from which their troops emerge elated and victorious. The soldiers on the front lines actually experience events, which scar their minds with thoughts of death and destruction. Remarque displays these ideas of pain and suffering through ignorance, fear, and inhumanity. One of the strongest themes in this book is that war makes man inhuman. Remarque often compared the troops to various nonliving objects that were inhuman. The soldiers are compared to "coins of different provinces that are melted down" and now they bear the same stamp, (Pg. 236). Remarque concludes that the soldiers' state of mind that exhibits change, from when they were schoolboys; the stamp being the mark of a soldier changing them forever. Paul compares his cronies and himself with "automatons"; robots operating themselves as nothing more than killing machines (Pg. 105). Remarque uses this analogy to give the impression that the soldiers endure the same feeling repeatedly in such a fashion that they appear inhuman. In this classic war story Remarque also describes the soldiers as inhuman wild beasts. Paul states that when soldiers reach the zone where the front begins they transform into "instant inhuman animals"(pg. 56). Remarque expresses the fact that the front resembles a magical line; once they cross it they're not the same people they lived as on the other side of the line. Paul comments, "We have become wild beasts. We do not fight we defend ourselves against annihilation"(pg. 103). Here Remarque states that the German soldiers only defend what they have, not attempting to pillage and burn what doesn't belong to them. Paul believes that they become something "like men again" after the soldiers get the food, which the body requires to function properly, (pg. 106). Remarque implies that the drive for food changes the troops into terrifying wild beasts, but when they get the foo
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Approximate Word count = 1265
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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