Ideas Presented in All Quiet on the Western Front Essay

A lost generation, emotional destruction, the reality of war, these are all ideas displayed in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front that prove the validity of the statement in the preface. These ideas and more expressed by the author, Erich Maria Remarque, present the reader with the war novel of a lifetime. A war novel that is different from any other because of these ideas and the way Remarque presents them.

A generation of young men was fresh out of school with the world at their fingertips, but they realized it was their duty to enlist in the war and have lost the innocence of youth because of it. They became a lost generation because, as is stated in the preface, they were, A generation of men who, even though they may have escaped the shells, were destroyed by the war. The young men had to deal with their friends dying at only the age of seventeen, something none of them could ever have been prepared to endure. For instance, when Paul watches Kemmerich die in the hospital he has to come face to face with death and destruction. This generation of men in the war was forced to mature faster than the rest of their peers. They had to kill or be killed in the trenches and were attacked by men not much different from himself. For example, Paul feels bad about killing the French printer and says, Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. (Remarque, 223)

The war destroyed the men emotionally, enough so that they were not able to return to normal after the war. When Paul is on leave he is not interested in everyday things he used to enjoy like reading books and plays. He thinks to himself the night before his leave is up, I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless---I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end.(Remarque, 185) The war has shattered their human spirit, and they began to feel there was no reason to go on. The soldiers had to ignore their emotions or else be destroyed by them. The killing of the French printer haunts Paul, This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts. (Remarque, 221)

Remarque portrays the war in a very real way. Other war novels have tried to lighten the mood of war or conceal some of the real facts that make war seem horrific. For example, Remarque holds nothing back when he describes the scene of injured horses during a bombardment, Some gallop away in the distance, fall down, and then run on farther. The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out. He becomes entangled in them and falls, then he stands up again. (Remarque, 63) Some novels attempt to make the war seem like an adventure, but as we see in the preface, Death is not an adventure for those who stand face to face with it. To me this is the most meaningful quote of the entire novel. Anyone can say that it is an honor and privilege for these men to fight for their country, but they make their comments a safe distance away from any shell fire or poison gas. Only those who have experienced the war, like Remarque, know how real the war is, and what it can do to people emotionally and physically.

To write a great war novel you do not need drama, exaggeration, or a happy ending. War is traumatic enough, Remarque only needed to state what really happened to make his point. What is so great about this particular war novel is that it is genuine and straightforward; it doesnt name one man a hero, portray a romantic love story, or hide the unsightly parts about the war that few people know. This book is the real deal. It was clearly able to show how a generation of young men lost the innocence of youth, how all men in the war were emotionally traumatized, and how real the war truly was. When we look at the effects of war on the soldiers of today, we see they are forced to deal with the same suffering as all the soldiers before them. This suffering will only end when it is not only All Quiet on the Western Front, but all quiet on every front.