About the Book:
In All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque takes you inside the gruesome realities of World War I through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a sensitive teenager and typical infantryman in the German army. Enlisted with his classmates at the urging of a teacher, Paul reaches manhood during three years as a soldier. Paul’s loss of innocence is the focus of the author’s sentiments about patriotic myths and the lasting effects of World War I on an entire generation.
Themes from the book that would make a good analysis topic:
Brutality of war: Remarque writes in the epigraph that his book will describe the men who were “destroyed by the war,” and after that All Quiet on the Western Front is a nearly ceaseless exploration of the destructive properties of The Great War. Included are two detailed chapters about fighting at the front and in the trenches (Chapters Four and Six). Remarque smashes whatever romantic preconceptions the reader may have about combat in his descriptions of rat-infestation, starvation, nerve attacks, shell-shock, and inclement weather–to say nothing for actual combat and the deadly zone of no-man’s-land between enemy trenches.
The reader is also introduced to all the new forms of assault World War I developed–tanks, airplanes, machine guns, more accurate artillery bombardment, and poisonous gas. The consequences of war are given due consideration–Paul watches friends die, sees dislocated body parts, and tours a hospital of the wounded. Each time Paul counts the thinning ranks of his company, we are reminded that all the fighting is only over a small piece of land–a few hundred yards or less–and that, very soon, the fighting will renew over whatever was gained or lost.
The young soldier’s alienation: To add to the discussion of war’s destructive properties (see Brutality of war, above), Remarque comments in the epigraph that his novel is primarily for “a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped the shells, were destroyed by the war.” This generation is Germany’s youth, pushed into the war by their nationalistic elders for a cause they have little stake in, and transformed into desensitized zombies by a war too brutal to endure. Paul’s flat tone throughout the novel emphasizes this numbness: he often passes off a friend’s death as if it is a common occurrence–which it is. If the soldier allowed himself to feel emotions, he would die far sooner, or go mad. Accordingly, the soldiers either make light of war–they bet over an airplane dogfight, for instance–or become pragmatic rather than sentimental (the fight over Kemmerich’s boots, for instance). Paul vows to repress his feelings until after the war, but even he cannot deny the profound pain he endures.
Paul’s disconnection emerges again when he visits home. He does not allow himself to bond with his dying mother, and regrets having come home and opened emotional wounds. He has further trouble connecting with the rest of his family and other civilians, none of whom he feels understands his plight, and it is clear his alienation also springs from his disconnection with the past. Like most of the young soldiers who joined the war after they graduated from school, he can barely remember what his life was like before he joined the military, and what he can remember now seems useless to him. Moreover, he cannot imagine any future after the military; the adjustment to civilian life and an occupation seems impossible. The young soldiers are caught in a nihilistic no-man’s-land between the irretrievable past and an unfathomable future.
Paul’s generation feels betrayed by its nationalistic elders like Kantorek, and by those who glorify war, such as the French brunette who is interested in Paul only as a romanticized soldier on the brink of death. The only thing reducing the soldiers’ alienation is their intimate bond with each other (see Unity among soldiers).
Nationalism: Nationalism is the unswerving dedication to one’s homeland, and it swept Europe in the years leading up to WWI. Kantorek, the boys’ former schoolteacher, epitomizes nationalism; Paul describes how Kantorek rallied his pupils with patriotic speeches and bullied them into volunteering for the war, ridiculing them for cowardice if they stayed at home. However, Kantorek and his generation are not the ones dying in the war. It is the “‘Iron Youth,'” as he calls them, who give up their lives for the political power games of a few global leaders.
Paul is bitter about the nationalism that has forced him and countless others to enter the war, but he manages to use it for humane purposes. He unites with the Russian prisoners through a universal language, music, knowing that arbitrary political powers have made them enemies. He also empathizes deeply with the Frenchman he kills, seeing past the man’s nationality and into his life (he discovers his name, occupation, and family situation). In fact, Paul kills the Frenchman in the no-man’s-land between enemy trenches, the only remaining place in Europe not owned by a particular country (although, of course, bitter fights take place over its ownership).
Unity among soldiers: The first word of the novel is “We,” and Paul’s typically first-person singular narration (“I”) frequently slips into the first-person plural voice. The one good thing that has emerged from the war, he often contends, is the comradeship between the soldiers. Disciplinarian training intent on breaking down the soldiers’ individuality, and the horrors of war, bond the men in ways civilians cannot comprehend. They do everything together, from eating to using the latrines; even dead bodies in battle are used as cover for the living.
http://www.gradesaver.com/all-quiet-on-the-western-front/study-guide/major-themes/
Paper Requirements:
4-5 pages typed (not including cover page), size 12 font, double spaced, 1 inch margins
Cover page (does not count as pages of text)
Reference page done in an accepted style (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.)
Please be specific and purposeful when citing examples whether from the textbook or other works. This should be done by footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetic citations showing the author’s name, and the page number (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc. style )
Use APA, MLA, Turabian, etc. style – I don’t care which one, just be consistent throughout paper.
