All Quiet on the Western Front - Essay.
All Quiet on the Western Front, written by Erich Maria Remarque, is a novel that takes you through the life of a soldier in World War I. Remarque is accurately able to portray the many stresses soldiers go through because he was actually a soldier himself, and was wounded in World War 1. This book shows the change in attitudes of the men before and during the war, and how war affects every man no matter what side they are fighting for. .
Also we see in this book that war has evolved very much since the start of warfare. In the eighteenth century commanders lined their men up and charged one another until almost every soldier was dead, to World War 1 where digging and "living" in the trenches with rapid-fire machine guns, bombs, and flame-throwers was dealt with every single day, night, and hour until the battle was won or lost. The war scarred the soldiers permanently, if not physically then mentally. After the war the soldiers usually never recovered from the war. Two of the most common side affects of the war were shell shock and stir crazy. .
The story is told by Paul Baumer, a German soldier during World War I. Paul first enlists with a group of his friends who all have much enthusiasm towards the war. They think that war is going to be nothing more than a great adventure. Throughout training the boys are not playful mood and do not understand the true pain and hardships that every soldier experiences. However, they are soon in battle in the trenches and, "The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces"(13). After their first two days of fighting, they return to their bunker, where they find neither safety nor comfort. They talk to a veteran, Kat, who says these "fresh-faced boys" should return to the classroom. With every man that they kill they loose respect for human life. .
The war has immersed Paul completely and he can no longer survive without it as it becomes the focus of his entire life.
