"The brown earth, the torn, blasted earth with the convulsed and dead soldiers, who lie here-it can't be helped-who cry and clutch at our legs as we spring away over them." (Remarque 115) This vivid quote is just one of the numerous examples in the eloquently described passages of how Erich Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front is a horrific tale of the truly devastating effects that world wars bring. All Quiet on the Western Front, as told by a young infantry soldier who describes the horrible realities of World War I's trench warfare and the drastic consequences of the war upon his generation. This touching novel tells the stark truth about all war, that it is senseless and a waste of so many lives, not only the ones fighting the war, but those left behind at home. The book so elaborately portrayed three horrendous themes: the destructiveness of war, alienation of a solider, and the hopelessness of a lost generation. .
The destructiveness of war is evident not only on the individual human lives and property, but also on the delicate human spirit. The destructive power is so great that even the basic differences between life and death become blurred. .
Many feel as if they are not truly living but only existing, for what purpose they do not know. This is the tale of a "generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by war" (Remarque preface) as said by Remarque himself in the preface of the novel. They were destroyed because they were cut off, cut off from the very life, which is in fact their birthright, before they had found a set idea for living. Paul Baumer, the narrator of the story, and his fellow classmates unpretentiously enter military service, but much to their chagrin, the realities of war soon revolutionize Paul and his comrades into "old folk" and "wild beasts". A wise person once reflected, "War destroys men: .
their hope in a seemingly hopeless situation attests to the endurance of the human spirit.